The Logic of Fate
by Gavrahil
Summary: Harry’s world stands at the brink of destruction and Voldemort has a plan! But hope is often found in the most improbable of places. 7th Year AU story. R&R!
1. Of Fathers and Owls

_**Disclaimer:** All Harry-, magic- and Hogwarts-related belongs to the wonderful J.K. Rowling, who's opened a whole new universe to us little FanFiction writers, so please don't sue me as I'm not making anything out of this. Everything else, meaning the original plot and characters belong to moi._

_**A/N:** As this is my first Harry Potter fic, feedback is very much appreciated and I will take any criticism seriously (except for flames, which I'm just going to ignore). So please leave your review, even if you don't like it.   
To the ones who already knew this story, rest assured: it's the same story. I just changed the title, because I didn't like it at all. Also since HPB this is now officially an AU story, but the only things I have changed (up until now at least) are the following:_

_ Narcissa didn't ask Snape for help at the beginning of HPB, so   
Snape, not bound by an unbreakable vow, did not help Draco, so   
Snape didn't kill Dumbledore (yep, the old geezer is still around here), and   
Snape is still at Hogwarts and so is Draco, who was stunned before he could reach the tower_

_Obviously these changes will have wide repercussions on the rest of my story, but to find them all out, I guess you'll have to read it grin.   
Many thanks go to my little bro, who's pigheaded perfectionism and taste were essential to the publication of this mental raving of mine._

**Chapter 1 – Of Fathers and Owls**

The soft click of the Enter-key triggered the start of the calculation process, while the cooling fans hummed silently in the background, and the man sank back into his armchair.

'And now we wait,' he thought bitterly by himself.

He hated this part of his job, since the machine began the calculation, which could last hours if not days, leaving him to his own thoughts, which at the moment were the place he wanted to be least in the entire world.

Inevitably his gaze was drawn to the photograph on his desk and, without even realizing it, his hand followed only seconds after, touching first the frame and then the glass, which covered the picture itself. His fingers caressed the cold surface lightly, as if it could break at any moment and the battle-hardened man at the desk felt his eyes fill with tears. This seemed to happen a lot lately, he thought with a slight sting of frustration.

A deep sigh escaped him as he leaned back and closed his eyes, either to rest them a little bit after all those hours of work at the computer-screen, or to bite back his tears. He didn't really know or care for that matter and he simply enjoyed the tranquilizing, silent hum, which came from the machine for a moment, before memories either too sweet or too bitter to bear, could catch up with him.

He was so lost in this short moment of peace that he didn't notice the soft snap of the opening door, and a sleepy, "Good morning, papà," was the first hint he got of the presence of the little girl behind him.

Prof. Robert Morrigan cursed himself silently, while his eyes opened abruptly and immediately sought ought the system clock on the screen.

'Damn! 8:00 already,' he thought in the brief time it needed for his armchair to swing around. 'There goes another all-nighter. And I promised we would go to the zoo today.'

Then his eyes fell upon his daughter and he knew that no matter how tired he was, or how many sleepless nights he had endured, she would never have to pay for it. He would walk barefoot into the deepest pit of hell and back for his little girl.

Eliza was currently rubbing her eyes, no doubt to drive the sleepiness out of them, and her slim body was shivering slightly in her pyjamas, as the chilly morning breeze blew through the window and the now open door. She had hidden the naked toes of her right foot under the sole of her left one and Robert shook his head in slight amusement.

"Why are you not wearing your socks, Eliza?" he asked, his tone scolding, but his lips smiling.

"Hmph!" she pouted, sending him a short glare, her eyes now fully awake and sparkling.

Robert had to force himself to breathe evenly and maintain his facial features in place.

'God! She looks so much like her mother,' he thought with a slight twinge in his chest, as he took the picture of the slightly offended eleven-year-old in.

Eliza was a slim young girl, who was a little shorter than average for her age, a drawback she usually balanced in pure attitude. She had straw-blond, curly locks like her mother, which were cut short all over, making it look like a fluffy, sun-coloured afro. Her facial features, although often covered in dirt or little scratches, were elegant and smooth with a little button nose to match, and her skin was a little darker than his own, also a gift from her mother.

Her eyes though were his, two dark pools of barely contained curiosity, and they sparkled so lively that at times they seemed almost like little orbs of black onyx.

But Robert was quickly brought out of his reverie and brutally thrown back to earth, when the insulted look left her eyes and she murmured:

"I had a dream of mama again, papà."

Robert felt a chill all over and only his relentless training in keeping his emotions in check allowed him to ignore the melon-sized lump in his throat, as he bent forward and pulled his daughter into his massive arms. He cradled her to his chest and lifted his right leg a little, so that she could bury her freezing toes under his warm thigh.

He could feel her little hands tightly clasping the front of his shirt as she rubbed her cheek at his chest, seeking much needed comfort, and his arms tightened around her little form to alleviate if not her pain, at least her chills.

But Robert realized with a painful sting that one thing was missing from this scene. Something one should expect from an eleven-year-old girl who had lost her mother just a few months ago: not a single tear smudged the fabric covering his torso. Eliza wasn't crying at the still fresh wound of her mother's death. She hadn't cried at the hospital, at the funeral, not once since her mother had drawn her last breath, and even though Robert couldn't blame her for this, as he was still to shed tears for his beloved Maria himself, he was still concerned at such behaviour.

Eliza snuggled herself into her papà's arms and listened to his soothing heartbeat. She remembered that she did like to listen to her mama's heartbeat, when she was scared at night and came into their bed. She always used to snuggle against the massive form of her papà, but she always pressed her ear against her mama's chest, to listen to the soft, comforting rhythm of her golden heart. But her papà had a nice heartbeat too, she decided as she rubbed her cheek against the soft shirt: stronger and slower but nice nonetheless.

Eliza tilted her head up to look into her papà's eyes, not leaving his chest with her ear for a second. Her papà looked down at her like he always did, and while someone else would not have noticed it, she clearly saw that he was tired.

Her papà was a big man, bigger than most of the other men she knew like her teachers or her schoolmates' fathers. But unlike some other men of his age, who had a belly, like her geography teacher Mr Corben, her papà had a big muscular chest and strong arms. He trained daily and often accompanied her to the park, where he played basketball with the older boys, while she skated on her board with her friends. He also still had all of his hair, which was cut short and was jet black.

'Well,' she thought with a smirk. 'There are already some grey hairs in there, but Mrs Cornwell says that makes him only look distinguished, whatever that means.'

Now he began to smile at her and she noticed the little scar just under his left eye become a funny little hook, while his square chin came down on her and his rough lips planted a slightly stinging peck on her forehead, as he hadn't shaved yet.

She giggled at the sensation and he unlocked his right arm around her to touch her forehead with his finger, where he had just kissed her.

"What is going on in here?" he asked teasingly as she grabbed his finger and softly pulled it down to see the scars on the back of his hand. She liked those scars because, when she had been little, he would make up stories from them, and she would listen in fascination to the tale of the brave knight just on top of his middle knuckle and his clash against the terrible dragon on his wrist.

'Mama loved those stories too,' she suddenly thought and her eyes unfocused for a second. Then she looked up again into the eyes of her papà and said:

"We don't need to go to the zoo today, you know. If you're tired, we can stay here and go tomorrow."

At that, pain quickly flashed in his eyes, but it was gone before you would have had the time to blink and a mischievous grin spread on his lips. The only problem was that Eliza _hadn't blinked_.

"Now that's not acceptable, missy," his voice rumbled through his chest. "What have I told you about unfinished business and leaving it until tomorrow?"

"That it's not a plausible way of action, sir!" she immediately snapped to attention, her left hand at her temple, only to mime the talking beak of a duck a moment later.

"Oh…" he retorted, his features freezing into a very disconcerting expression that was though belied by the glee in his eyes. "So this is how you want to play it, marine?"

And before she knew it, he had started tickling her mercilessly, while she wriggled in his arms in loud fits of laughter. Soon she started pummelling his chest to get free although she knew exactly that she could as well have thrown punches at a wall, for all the effect that her efforts had on her papà. Nonetheless he soon switched tactics, jumped out of his chair holding her suspended between his hands and began to twirl her around the little room, which made her positively shriek with joy. Then he began to plaster her face with loud smacking kisses.

"No, papà," she howled between giggles, while she tried to push him away with both hands and feet. "Stop that. That's… ewww!" she squeaked.

"Well if that's so…" he stopped his onslaught and deposited her softly on the floor. "Then you better wash up, and come down for breakfast, on the double. We have a long day ahead of us."

Eliza nodded firmly and stretched her arms, standing on tiptoes to give her father one last peck, before she darted outside the door.

"And put some socks on, young lady," he shouted after her, while he rose to his feet again.

He stood still for a moment, smiling at the empty space she had vacated, and then made his way to the door, giving the computer screen behind him only a short glance to ensure that the process was still running.

When he stepped into the kitchen and walked over to the cupboards a soft light was already flooding the room and the orchid on the windowpane glowed in golden and red colours. Robert had never had the green thumb, but Maria had taught him nonetheless and now he was at least proficient enough to keep this orchid alive long enough for it to bloom in its complete magnificence.

The orchid had been Maria's favourite flower and there had always been an orchid in this kitchen, ever since they bought this house over thirteen years ago. And no matter where Robert would go from here, there would always be an orchid in the kitchen.

After a few more moments of silence, Robert pulled himself out of his memories and began to prepare breakfast.

When Eliza finally entered the kitchen, two eggs were already bristling in the pan, while the delicious smell of bacon tickled her nose. The bread was cut, the margarine and jam were waiting to be spread and the orange juice sat on the table, ready to be drunk.

She was wearing a bright pink t-shirt with a faded and quite torn pair of old jeans. The mistreated pair of old sneakers completed her skater look as she strolled in to sit on one of the three chairs around the little table in the kitchen, but as she reached for the orange juice, Robert said over his shoulder:

"Before you start to stuff yourself, young lady, could you please collect the mail?"

With a little groan, Eliza got up from the table and went to the entrance door, where a few letters lay on the doormat. She picked them up and began to flip through them, in case there was something for her, while she began to walk back to the kitchen. She was just leaving the entrance when she uncovered a funny-looking envelope under all the letters, advertisements and bills for her papà.

It was a heavy envelope, made of rough and yellowish parchment like the one they used during the Roman – or was it the Egyptian? – Empire. On the front was an old-fashioned wax seal, like the ones her grandma always used on her birthday-cards, but this one was not red, but of a rather funny purple with four animals twined around a big 'H' in the middle. Eliza turned the letter around and stared at the address written in green ink – who used green of all colours to write something? – which clearly stated her name on top.

Seized by curiosity Eliza broke the seal and opened the envelope, to find an equally yellowish parchment letter inside. She sat in her chair, the other letters forgotten on the table, and read curiously with her tongue between her teeth:

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY   
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore   
(Order of Merlin, First Class,   
Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump,   
International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Ms Morrigan,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.   
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall   
Deputy Headmistress_

While Eliza read the letter, her eyes grew wider and wider, until they reached the extent of fully grown saucers. When she then reached the second page, she let out an unbelieving gasp and shook her head to clear it. But when she opened her eyes and looked again at the letter, its content was still there.

'Magical Herbs… Fantastic Beasts… wands, cauldrons and… _a toad?_' she thought disbelievingly, while she scanned the page before her over and over. After a second she turned the page around, half expecting something like 'April Fool!' written on the backside of this ludicrous piece of parchment, but there was nothing there.

"What is it, darling?" said her papà, when he dropped a plate with an egg, some bacon and toast in front of her on the kitchen table. "What are you reading?"

Eliza looked up at him and handed him the parchments almost automatically, her eyes still wide from shock and her jaw hanging open. He frowned a little at the state of his almost unfazeable daughter and took the parchment from her hands, but after a few seconds he surprised Eliza by laughing out loud.

She stared at him in puzzlement, when he suddenly asked, "Who sent you this?"

Eliza stretched forward the envelope and he took it gingerly into his hand and chuckled some more while he turned it around and saw the purple wax seal.

"What is it, papà?" she finally asked a little shaken.

"Oh, it must be a joke," he said between bursts of mirth, "or some sort of advertisement, dear. Don't think about it." Still shaking his head, he walked over to the trash bin and dumped the odd letter in it, before he stepped over to the table again and sat in front of his own plate.

"Come on now, eat your breakfast, missy. We'll have to hurry if we want to see them feed the cheetahs," he said just a second before the first strip of bacon disappeared in his mouth.

Eliza's gaze snuck once more to the trash bin for a moment, but then her no-nonsense attitude took over and she dedicated herself to her breakfast, shaking her head a little at her stupid reaction.

'School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Spells and Transfiguration… yeah right!' she concluded with a final shrug, before every thought of the odd letter was wiped from her mind.

Her papà sure was a good cook, she mused, while she tucked in.

Eliza walked alongside her papà, holding his hand and hurrying along, to keep up with his enormous strides. She was though used to his pace and jumped up and down giggling near him, without breaking a sweat. Every once in a while, when she became tired, she would tug at his hand and he would swing her up effortlessly to carry her on his shoulders for a little while. Eliza knew that she was technically too old to be carried around on the shoulders of her papà, but she didn't mind as long as he didn't mind and the view from this high up was simply too cool.

They had had a very pleasant day at the zoo and Eliza had zipped all around the place up until lunchtime, when they had gone to the zoo restaurant and gotten themselves some really big stakes with lots of barbeque-sauce and two oversized lemonades. Her papà had frowned at some point and asked her where she hid all that stuff, given her short size, which caused a rather angry reaction on her part, including a lot of glaring and some fork-waving. Her papà had immediately surrendered with plenty of mock implorations for mercy and subsequent fits of laughter from both of them.

They had seen the elephants, the giraffes, the lions and the cheetahs. She had wrinkled her nose at the serpents and reptiles and had watched the aquarium show in fascination. At some point the orca had smacked so heavily into the pool that she had to use her papà as shield to avoid the splashes of water, while he had sat there completely unfazed by the wet projectiles coming his way. But as it was a sunny day, his shirt was already dry, when they reached the insect house.

After the zoo they went to the park, where he had stretched out on a bench and relaxed a little, while she pulled her skateboard out of her backpack and started to enjoy the new obstacle course. She had rolled up and down the ramps and half-pipes without interruption for an hour and a half and was even daring enough to slide down the new steel pipe, impressing the boys around quite a lot, until her papà had called her, for the last stop on their adventure trip: the planetarium.

She had sat in her papà's lap, while he pointed out constellations to her and explained what the stars and planets were and what some of the Greek names meant. She had stared in wonder at the infinity of black spotted with little points of white and couldn't believe the thought of these enormous balls of gas millions of light-years away, some of them already gone for eons, but their light still on its way to us, bearing the news of the death of yet another cosmic giant. She had stared in awe at the beauty of Saturn's rings, trembled at the power of a black hole and dreamt of walking the valleys of Mars.

Then they went to a sushi restaurant to conclude the day with a maxi-plate of food, at which most of her friends at school would probably have wrinkled their noses in the best of cases. She however liked the stuff and a little, playful chopstick duel ensued between them over the last bit of octopus.

Now they were strolling home under the streetlamps and Eliza enjoyed the last warmth of the day, while their house appeared around the corner and her papà looked fondly down at her. She grinned back at him, adjusted the straps of her backpack around her shoulders and took off screaming, "Last one has to read the first chapter."

Her papà reached her just in front of the porch and swept her up into his arms, before she could cross the garden gate.

"No fair," she squeaked between giggles, as he threw her effortlessly over his shoulder like a bag of peas, completely ignoring her wriggling and kicking feet. "Let me down, let me down!" she shrieked with glee and tried to tickle him under his arm. The attempt remained not without a result, as he twitched a little bit, loosening his grip around her waist and before he knew it, she had already grabbed his shirt and swung down him with a move of remarkable athletic prowess for an eleven-year-old.

He immediately whipped around and crouched down, extending his arms at his sides, as if defending the front entrance against her; she swiftly imitated him, dropping her backpack and getting low herself. She moved abruptly first to the right then to the left, but he blocked her both times as if reading her thoughts, so she adapted another strategy: she poked her tongue out at him whereupon he shot her a mock-glare and growled, "You're asking for it, young lady!" And with that he lunged for her, his arms closing in on her for a bear-hug.

But she had been prepared for that, and as soon as he was close enough she dove through his legs and rolled onto her feet in one fluid movement, so when he turned around, he found her already at the door, smirking.

Smiling softly at her, he shook his head in desperation and chuckled, "I've taught you too well, haven't I." Then he grabbed her backpack and made his way to the door.

"You bet you have!" she nodded, her hands firmly on her hips, her chin raised defiantly. Of course her raised chin was kind of a necessity, as she barely reached his bellybutton, but the attitude was well present nonetheless. But only a second after that her smirk turned into a wide grin and she grabbed his hand again.

"Can we read one of the robot stories today, papà?" she asked with pleading eyes, whose gaze he knew perfectly well he couldn't resist.

He returned her a warm smile and said, "Sure, which one would you like?"

"Robbie!" she cried out immediately, bouncing up and down on her toes.

"Again?" he groaned and shook his head smiling inwardly. Eliza had always loved this story ever since he first read it to her as a little child and even if she was 'an adult already', as she liked to point out, every once in a while she asked him for this story. He still remembered her wide eyes looking over the rim of her blanket, the look of shock when Gloria was about to be run over by the truck and the sigh of relief, when Gloria's parents finally gave in and brought Robbie back home… and Maria had stood in the doorway smiling the whole time and laughing at his walking around the room, to illustrate the walking of a robot to the incredulously staring Eliza.

He was caught a moment in his memories, while the key clicked in its lock and the door swung open, so he didn't immediately notice the two parchment envelopes, with green addresses and purple seals, waiting on the doormat.

When he ran to the front porch this morning, Robert's temper was already somewhat short. So when he ripped the door open and bellowed, "You, come in here! Now!" the brown barn owl, who had just delivered her message and was about to take off again, stopped dead in its tracks and looked back at the sternly looking human in astonishment.

She thought for a moment, if she had done something wrong, but she had delivered the envelope quickly and to the correct address, like a respectable post owl such as herself should, so she really couldn't understand the excitement of the human and ruffled her feathers at him in indignation. But on the other hand the look in the human's narrow eyes – and the yellow ball in his hand – didn't seem to admit any room for argument and finally the owl decided to abide his order and hopped from the fence to land on the human's outstretched arm.

He carried her into the kitchen and deposited her on the back of a chair. Then he filled a little bit of water into a cup and dropped it along with a few slices of bacon on the table in front of the owl.

"I warn you," he growled, looking the puzzled bird straight in the eyes. "If I find one drop of something that could even remotely have come from your backside, you'll wish that you could turn your head around more than 180 degrees." Then he left for his study, where he sat down in front of his computer and started his word-processor.

This had gone on long enough!

Three days in a row now Eliza was getting more and more of these weird letters, which had neither a stamp nor a return address on them. Yesterday morning there had been five letters on the doormat and today they accumulated already into a little heap.

Robert had searched for the crest on the seal, but there was no known teaching institution in Britain – or Europe for that matter – to which it could have belonged to and the simple idea of a school of sorcery was simply ludicrous.

He had though thought about it and had to admit that there had been strange things happening around his daughter every once in a while: in kindergarten the hair of one of her classmates, who had bullied her on the playground, had inexplicably turned pink all of a sudden and when her mother had insisted on buying shirts with laced collars for her first school uniform, the next morning all the laces were gone, but the shirts still looked new.

But the strangest thing happened not as much as one year ago, as they all went to the park and one of Eliza's friends convinced her on trying out the new half-pipe. When he heard the shriek of his wife, Robert whipped around from his basketball-game, to see his daughter fall from as high as three meters… only to literally bounce off the ground, completely unharmed. And come to think of it, every one of Eliza's skater friends had been injured at least once, with things ranging from distortions, to dislocations all the way up to broken bones and the sort. But the worst Eliza had ever come home with was a bruised knee or elbow.

So Robert – although a man of science to the bone – was ready to accept certain things as inexplicable and believed that those occurrences could be called magic, if one wanted to use such a superstitious term for it. And since the writers of these letters seemed to be very eager to take Eliza into their school and at least the headmaster was mentioned with some kinds of titles – though somewhat funny looking ones – Robert was ready to at least consider the possibility.

But he would be damned if he would allow Eliza to become part of some sort of cult. So unless he would be authorized to visit and thoroughly inspect this so called Hogwarts, these people wouldn't come within wide artillery range of his daughter.

There was one problem though: how was he to communicate with someone of whom he didn't have neither address, nor telephone number nor e-mail address?

The letters just stated that a response by owl was expected, which had left Robert quite dumbfounded, until he had decided to determine, how they were delivered. His phone call to the post office had resulted in clerks, who were even more clueless than him, so he decided to do it the old-fashioned way: he went on stake-out over the next night and to his utter bemusement he found out that the letters were indeed delivered by owls – as in night-active birds, scientific name _Tyto alba_ – who swooped in from nowhere and threw the letters with mathematical precision through the slit in the door.

So Robert had decided to use one of these unusual messengers to deliver his response and had waited for them the whole night.

Now he cracked his knuckles in front of his computer, before he started pummelling the keyboard:

_Dear Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,_

_Both my daughter and I are honoured by your kind offer to accept her at your school, but I have to regrettably inform you that Eliza has already been accepted to the Isaac Newton Middle-school, one of the most prestigious learning institutions in the United Kingdom. Quite frankly I don't see why I should cancel her admission there, for a school that has no official record anywhere in Europe.   
Your rather peculiar insistence though – which, to be entirely honest, could be interpreted as harassment I might add – has led me to believe, that in the interest of my daughter's future, I have to consider all the options, before making a final decision.   
With this interest at heart I write to you, asking to be allowed to visit your institution to get a better idea what Hogwarts is all about, and as much as I regret this, I have to inform you, that I will under no circumstances permit Eliza to attend your school, if this visit should be denied or if it should yield unsatisfactory results, as this is my responsibility as a parent._

_In the hope you will understand my request, I remain yours sincerely,_

_Prof. Robert Morrigan   
Vice Dean, Dept. of Applied Physics   
Cornwall University, London_

Robert reread the letter again quickly to make sure it contained the necessary balance between determination and politeness, then printed and signed it, before he printed what he knew of the recipient's address on an envelope. Subsequently he walked down to the kitchen with the envelope and entered the room just as the owl was finishing her bacon and addressed the bird directly.

"Do you need a stamp for this, or what?"

The owl fixed him shortly with her huge eyes, blinked once, swooped up to pluck the envelope out of his hand and zoomed through the still open door.

Robert looked after her for a while, before he shrugged and closed the door with a shake of his head.

'Well,' he thought. 'Now it's up to them.'

Albus Dumbledore was having a bad day.

That alone was somewhat newsworthy, as the elderly wizard's notorious sense of humour usually kept him from sinking too much into any kind of depression to actually say that he was, in fact, having a bad day. But lately those quite unusual days had become something of a recurring disturbance in his life, and this for a wide variety of different reasons: first and foremost there had been the chaos in the ministry only a week ago after Cornelius' latest brilliant idea to request the passing of a _Dark Creatures Registration Act_, which in his mind should ensure the protection of both the wizarding world and "those poor aberrations of nature, either not willing, or too weak to resist You-Know-Who's calling," as he had put it. The entire ministry had gone haywire for three complete days, as everyone tried to figure out how to effectively register vampires and dementors, especially those, who didn't want to be registered. Then he had to endure multiple attacks from the _Daily Prophet_ regarding "the Order of the Phoenix's lack of action in sight of our impending doom at You-Know-Who's hands." Sometimes he really felt the urge of leaving that Skeeter-woman together with Remus in a room with nothing but lots of moonlight.

'And throw in Umbridge as well,' he thought acidly, while rubbing his temples and looking at the towering stack of parchment on his desk, which was surely doing nothing to alleviate his headache, rather attempting to turn it into a fully blown migraine. The ex-Senior Undersecretary, now head of the Department of Magical Education had begun a petty vendetta against the headmaster of Hogwarts after she had recovered from her adventure with the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest. However she found herself deposed of her old position and demoted to head of a rather insignificant department, as Dumbledore himself was universally regarded as the authority in this field and the department itself had been nothing more than a paper-pushing, bureaucratic necessity. But nonetheless she managed to flood his desk with mountains of parchment every other day, as soon as she had figured out yet another trivial detail, which needed attention – and tons of forms.

And then there was Harry.

Dumbledore let his mind go blank and his eyes unfocussed for a brief moment, while he recalled the memory of a little baby almost exactly sixteen years ago, as he lay peacefully sleeping, enveloped in a little blanket… How much that baby had changed over the years into the teenager that he was now. Dumbledore could almost not believe it.

Harry had had his share of tragedy in his life, earlier and harder than most people: parents murdered by a maniacal madman; forced to grow up in an environment that despised him at best; attacked and injured over and over by people he didn't know and for reasons he didn't comprehend. And finally the death of the one and only person, that had been to Harry like a father, the only one he ever had.

Dumbledore took his half-moon spectacles from the bridge of his nose to wipe a little tear from his left eye, as he thought of Sirius Black. The man had been pigheaded, rash and almost irresponsible at times, but he had given Harry everything he had and more. He had loved the boy, as if Harry had been his own, up until his last breath.

His death had left Harry broken in a way that even Dumbledore could not fully understand, but nonetheless The-Boy-Who-Lived had not exactly been himself over the past year. He had become silent, preferring to be alone even while in the company of his best friends, almost secluding himself from anything and everything. But gone was also every hint of shyness, his eyes turning almost as hard as chipped emeralds, every time he turned his gaze upon somebody else.

It had taken his two best friends' strongest efforts up until Christmas to get him out of his shell again, but there was still something buried deep inside, that showed his ugly face only in Harry's darkest moments. And even Dumbledore had to admit, that it scared him to his very core. And more often than not the old wizard caught himself thinking if he hadn't been wrong all along and if the path he had lain out for Harry was not, in fact, going to break the boy completely in the end.

Dumbledore sighed and lay his glasses down in front of him on his desk and sat back in his armchair, to rest his eyes a little, while he listened to the soft clicking sound of all his gadgets and gimmicks he held in this room. When he heard the knock at the door he almost groaned in exasperation.

"Can an old man not have a single moment of peace around here?" he mumbled to himself, as he reached for his glasses again and straightened himself on his chair, collecting the long robes around him comfortably.

'Well, no,' a little voice in the back of his head responded to his question. 'That's what you get for being a smartass and becoming headmaster of Hogwarts, while one of the best students you ever had has become the greatest single threat to the magical world in two centuries.'

With a grin Dumbledore lifted his pointed hat to the top of his head and shifted it around a little, until it sat straight. Then he called, "Come in."

The stern witch who stepped in was almost concerned about opening the door too much and when she came to a halt just on the other side of his desk, all tight hair-bun, orderly robes and straight, thin mouth, she shuffled a little with her feet, before the Professor in her took control over her actions again.

Dumbledore almost did a double-take, while he thought in shock, 'Since when does Minerva McGonagall shuffle her feet like a first year?'

Then he noticed the parchment in her hands, or to be precise, one of the sheets was made of parchment, but the other was made out of common paper, cleanly cut and snow-white, like the ones used by Muggles.

"What is it, Minerva?" Dumbledore began a quizzical look in his blue eyes. He just hoped that Fudge hadn't done anything else, or that Umbridge hadn't gotten her hands on the _Bureaucraticus Demonicus_ – not that she needed it anyway.

But his Transfigurations Professor just handed him the sheet of Muggle-paper and he began to read it immediately after a glance at a steadier panicking Minerva. When he had finished, he couldn't contain the chuckle, but muffled it immediately as soon as he felt her stern glare upon him.

"This is no laughing matter, Albus," she admonished through clenched teeth, while her frown deepened. "This man refuses to allow his daughter to attend here, if he can't visit Hogwarts beforehand."

"And?" Dumbledore asked innocently, turning his gaze to Minerva. "I'd say, finally a responsible parent," he concluded a bit flatly. But Minerva brushed his remark aside with an impatient wave of her hand.

"He can't visit, Albus. Only taking down the wards, to allow him to enter the school grounds would take at least a week. Not to mention that we would be completely defenceless for another month or so, until they can be replaced," she mused.

"I know, I know," Dumbledore cut her off again. "But why hasn't the ministry already taken action and sent somebody to explain the facts to him… or screw his brain up, if plan A fails." Dumbledore's tone spoke volumes on his view in this matter: he had always been against the forcible correction of the parents' minds, if they should refuse to send their magically inclined children to Hogwarts. Fortunately this hadn't occurred for a few decades now, but the simple fact, that it was still regarded as a possibility disturbed the headmaster more than he would admit in front of anyone not being Minerva McGonagall.

"That's the point, Albus," she said handing him the parchment, which Dumbledore saw now, came from the Department of Muggle Relations. "They already sent somebody. And Professor Morrigan was thoroughly instructed of our existence and of Hogwarts, but he still refused to send his daughter here without a previous visit."

"So what happened to plan B then?" Albus continued, while he scanned rapidly through the report, his eyes growing wide, as he read the part concerning just that.

"Well, the representative, who was sent, tried the _Confundus_ charm, the _Obliviate_ curse and even Legilimency. But nothing worked and as the representative didn't know how to react to something like that, he left and immediately wrote me a letter, sending a copy of his report along with it, for you to read."

"Hmm," Dumbledore mused, while putting together the tips of his long fingers. "This is surely uncommon: a Muggle who can withstand magical attacks on his mind to such a degree. Rather fascinating." Then he abruptly turned his gaze on Minerva again and asked, "Do we know anything about this… Professor Morrigan?"

"Yes," Minerva sprang into action snatching some more sheets of parchment out of the intricate waves of her robe, making it look like she had pulled them out of thin air. "Kingsley has dug up some useful information about this man." She pushed her square glasses up her nose a little, before she continued.

"Robert Morrigan seems indeed to be a lecturer at both Cornwall and London State Universities. He's an ex-Royal Marine with a flawless conduct record and more than a few decorations. He served from '68 till '85, studied during his service achieving a BSc in chemistry, an MSc in both electronic engineering and math and finally a PhD in applied physics. His thesis was about some theoretical machines called 'nanobots', whatever that is." She paused and looked at Dumbledore, who nodded acknowledging the information.

"That is quite an impressive resume, I dare say. Do we know anything about his family and why he hasn't been notified by the ministry right away, when his daughter came to be of age?"

"Well," Minerva wriggled a little uncomfortably in her robes. "His wife was a witch by the name of Maria Silvanelli. She graduated here in '77. He met her in '83 and married her one year later. He left the military for her, even forfeiting his full pension, as he quit his service before his 20th year was complete. They even proposed him a promotion to the rank of Major if he would remain to the end of his regular service, but he declined, stating personal reasons as motivation…"

"You said, 'His wife _was_ a witch,' Minerva," Dumbledore interrupted her suddenly, meeting her wavering gaze with clear blue eyes, shadowed slightly by compassion for the inevitable conclusion, that her phrase posed.

"She died six months ago. She was run over by a drunk driver and died two days later in a Muggle hospital from her internal lesions." As Minerva reached for her glasses, to push them up her nose again, Dumbledore noticed, that her hand was shaking a little. Then she looked up at him and continued, suppressing a sigh, "She probably died before she could tell him anything and the ministry representative said, that because of that 'dark creatures registration act' of Minister Fudge's office, they where so overwhelmed with work, that the notice must have slipped their attention."

'Marvellous work Cornelius,' Dumbledore cursed by himself and his eyes became steely for just a second. Then he announced, "Well, I guess there is nothing we can do about it, I'm afraid."

"But Albus," Minerva sputtered, now leaning over his desk, her hands firmly on the table top and Kingsley's parchments crumpled together between her fingers. "We can't just leave this young witch completely uneducated. She has to be sent here."

"But the man is right, Minerva. Given the choices he has at the moment he's making a perfectly reasonable decision, considering that the Isaac Newton Middle-school is one of the best scientifically inclined schools in the United Kingdom. And we are asking him to forfeit his daughter's future at this institution for a school that doesn't even officially exist. What would you do in his position?" Dumbledore stood up and began to pace around the room, to clear his head. He simply wouldn't have been able to sit at his desk one more second.

"And since our methods of, shall we say persuasion, didn't work on him, Mr Morrigan doesn't only have the _right_, but for once also the _choice_ to act according to his conscience and his sense of responsibility. Until now we have always played God, Minerva, telling parents what to do with their children, and I always wondered if we weren't wrong about that."

"But the girl still needs to be educated, Albus, or she could blow our cover wide open revealing our world in one single outburst of wild magic," she said, while watching his restless pacing.

"I wonder if that was necessarily such a bad idea," Dumbledore mumbled under his breath, but obviously not silently enough for her to miss.

"Albus!" she almost shrieked. "Don't even joke about such a thing."

"I know, I know. I'm sorry, Minerva," he whispered tiredly. "It's just Cornelius and Umbridge and all what's happening. I must be becoming senile already."

"Don't joke about that either," she scolded him, her tone gentle though and Dumbledore noted that a slight smile had crept up to her eyes. He shook his head now smiling himself and sat down at his desk again, leaning heavily against the back of the old chair.

Then he sighed and announced suddenly, "I could still go there in person and try to convince him."

"Hmm. That would be the only logical course of action, I guess," she admitted and sat down on a chair in a corner right across the desk. He nodded shortly, before he asked, "Do you have any more information on him?"

"Not much," she confessed, trying to flatten the now crumpled piece of parchment. "Just the names of his parents." Dumbledore nodded encouragingly, meaning her to continue.

"Well his mother is a certain Virginia Juliet Morrigan, hotel maid since the early 60ies, now retired. She lives in a little flat in South London."

"And his father?" Dumbledore asked with a growing interest. The name Morrigan had stirred something in him, a memory long thought lost, but it had been there the whole time, nagging at the back of his head. And now he almost feared the answer.

"A war hero during the second world war by the name of Francis Albert Morrigan. Deceased."

Minerva saw up from the parchment in her lap, to see that Albus' gaze had become almost impenetrable for a second, before the usual twinkling she loved so much about him came back to his eyes for the first time during this entire conversation.

"Let him come," he smiled with satisfaction.

"But Albus, the wards and…" she trailed off, as he cut her off with a wave of his long fingered hand.

"Minerva! Don't worry about the wards. Just let him come," he said jovially, his entire bad mood seemingly evaporated into thin air. "Don't worry," he added then after a few seconds. "I know what I'm doing. I'm not senile after all. Not quite," he chuckled and she responded with a short giggle.

'Oh my God,' he thought as he watched her stand up and make her way to the door. 'Minerva McGonagall just giggled. This is a sure sign for the apocalypse.' This thought was though wiped from his mind, when she looked back at him on the door-sill, her no-nonsense attitude firmly back in place, tight bun, stern glare and all.

"Headmaster," she nodded to him.

"Professor," he nodded back thus officially dismissing her from his office. He watched the door closing until he was alone in his study again, only with the soft clicking and ticking noises of his various gadgets to fill the silence. But it wasn't nearly as lonely as it had been just ten minutes ago and his headache was all but evaporated, as he grabbed the first sheet off the Umbridge-pile and went to work.

'Yes,' he thought. 'This is going to be fun after all.'

_**A/N:** I hope you liked it and that I'll see you in the next chapter. And yes, Harry will be around this time. After all this is a Harry Potter fic.   
But to those of you, who like to stress their brains, here's one final quiz: **Who's the author of the story Eliza wants to read?**   
Resolution in the next chapter._


	2. Much Ado About Dudley

_**A/N:** Again many thanks to my little bro for beta-reading and to those of you, who have kindly reviewed.   
And now, on with the story. Have Fun!_

**Chapter 2 – Much Ado About Dudley**

When the residents of Privet Drive saw him strolling down the street lazily that summer afternoon, he clearly recognized the looks of indignation at his scruffy appearance, but he ignored them and continued his walk towards Wisteria Walk, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the last warmth of the fading day.

Harry had to admit that this one had been the best summer he had ever spent with the Dursleys – mainly because his aunt and uncle had obviously decided to completely ignore him. They didn't speak to him, they didn't listen to him; they didn't even seem to acknowledge him, when he entered the same room. But Harry had long since learned that such peace was a precarious state in the Dursley home, so he tried everything to uphold it – mainly by avoiding his relatives whenever he could.

That left him though for the first time in his life with quite a huge amount of freedom, which he used to stroll through the city during the day and explore it thoroughly. He even went to central London a few times and visited the city his aunt and uncle had never wanted him to see, probably because they were afraid that he would blow it up, no doubt. But he had visited the Tower of London, wandered along Piccadilly Circus and fled the loud music of a nightclub, but not before he was repeatedly told how cool his hair looked. He had smiled inwardly at this statement, as he considered that Muggle boys usually spent hours in front of a mirror trying, with the aid of tons of hair gel, sprays and other stuff like that, to get their hair as untamed as his was naturally.

He had though discovered quite quickly that those Muggle clubs were nothing he could get comfortable with, so he went back to using the evenings for his homework, even if the sights certain girls had offered had been very intriguing.

'I mean, geez!' he thought while walking down Wisteria Walk. 'I didn't know that a girl could have so much skin to show to begin with. Hermione would have had a stroke, if she would have seen some of those outfits,' he mused smiling lightly at the memory of his friend. 'Even though,' he grinned inwardly, 'she would have been able to pull them off, no problem.'

Harry had never been interested in Hermione other than as the friend she always had been to him, so he usually didn't think along these lines about her – without taking into consideration that Ron would have killed him on the spot if he would have. But nonetheless Harry had to admit that Hermione had developed into a stunningly beautiful young witch, as even the Slytherins had been caught, checking her out. During their last year her curves had smoothed themselves out and since Ron had begun carrying most of the books, which used to weigh her down, her posture had straightened too. She had elegant features and even her hair seemed to have given up its bushiness – or she had finally found a way to tame it.

Therefore Hermione Granger had been one of the most coveted females at Hogwarts, even though she was wearing school robes, which in Harry's mind weren't exactly the most advantageous clothes for a young woman's body. So when he pictured some of the outfits he had seen in those clubs onto her, the results were prohibitive, to say the least, and Ron would have probably been torn between the urge to jump her on the spot, and the one to hide her in the next best closet – where he could have jumped her in all due peace.

Smiling at the mental picture Harry walked down Magnolia Crescent to the little park, he used to spend time after school when he was little, dreading the return to his guardians' house and enjoying the short periods of peace, when neither his aunt nor uncle, nor his cousin Dudley would bother him.

'Speaking of which,' he mused as he sat down on one of the swings in the now deserted park. 'Dudley has been very strange lately… In fact he has been strange since last summer, when you think of it,' Harry's thoughts ground forward, while he began to swing absentmindedly.

And in fact, Harry realized, his cousin had changed quite a lot in the past two years both physically and in his attitude; changes which Harry couldn't fathom and, if he wanted to be completely honest, scared him a bit.

First of all Dudley had stopped harassing Harry in any way, but not by avoiding him like Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia and not in the cowardly frightened way he had done during the years after Harry's admission at Hogwarts, when he had been terrified of what Harry could have done to him with his magic. On the contrary, Dudley had become the only bearable person in the Dursley household, since he greeted Harry with a short nod whenever he saw him and behaved completely at ease around him, even though they hadn't exchanged more than the incidental "Hello" now and then.

'No, actually,' Harry interrupted his thoughts as an occurrence came back to him, that had happened only a few weeks ago: he had come by Dudley's room, while he was strolling aimlessly around the house, and had found him studying, which in itself was a puzzling fact worthy to be remembered in legends. But when Harry had entered the room and asked him, if he could use his computer, Dudley had just raised his head for a second and had mumbled, "Yeah, sure," before he had resumed his work.

Harry had been rooted to the spot for a full minute, before his brain had finally processed the message. He had never expected Dudley to answer anything else than, "No, not ever, you freak of nature," and had, if he was completely honest with himself, only asked the question to annoy Dudley a little bit.

When he had gathered himself enough to retaliate he had asked Dudley with mock concern, "Dudley, are you sure you're not sick or something?"

To that Dudley had simply sat up and had said in a voice dripping with annoyance, "No, Harry. I'm quite well, thank you. So you either help yourself at the computer, or you leave me alone, since I still got some work to do." And with that he had returned to his studies, without so much as a backwards glance at Harry, who – after some more staring at his cousin – had retreated in confusion from Dudley's bedroom and returned to his own, realising that he had in fact thrown his only chance in years to have a go at Dudley's computer out the window because of his stupid reaction.

Harry observed the world, while it was teetering up and down in front of his eyes and felt his good mood slip away somewhat.

'Am I becoming like them?' he thought, putting his feet down on the earth, thus putting a grinding halt to his swinging. 'Am I becoming a bigot, like the Dursleys? I mean, ok… they made my life hell for most of my childhood and Dudley was the cell keeper, but he hasn't done anything to me for two years.' Harry got up from the swing and began to walk, like he always did, when he was thinking about uncomfortable matters.

'He allowed me for the first time, to use his stuff – if Aunt Petunia knew about it, she would flip – and I mocked him about it. I threw it in his face…' Harry dug his hands deep into his pockets, as a frown worked its way onto his features.

'But why?' he mused. 'Why would Dudley suddenly start being nice to me? What happened that changed his mind about me? His parents have nothing to do with it, sure enough, and I guess his friends would still rather beat me into a pulp than speak to me, so what is it?'

Then it hit Harry like a train.

'The dementor,' he thought with an icy chill running down his spine. He remembered that awful sensation, like death itself would stretch its clammy hands toward you every time a dementor was nearby. And Dudley had nearly been kissed by one of those monsters! So Harry could only imagine how Dudley must have felt then. He remembered that Dudley wouldn't eat anything for days after the incident and he had heard rumours that his cousin had completely cut every relationship with his gang although he hadn't believed it then.

They weren't dumb enough to get on his wrong side of course, because they were still afraid of him. Dudley was still the largest and strongest guy in their entire neighbourhood after all and the years of disciplined training and hard work were visible in every inch of bulging muscles; Dudley had become a real athlete towering an entire foot over and weighing at least twice as much as Harry did, his shape clearly defined now that all the fat from his childhood was gone. But any unlucky chap that would have thought him slow, would have regretted his mistake soon enough: Harry himself had struggled to believe what he had seen in one of the tapes of Dudley's championship fights, when his cousin had literally danced circles around his adversary. But nonetheless Pierce, who had become gang leader, and his cronies had been seen now and then around Privet Drive glaring at Number 4, probably because they still resented Dudley for leaving; especially after last summer, when one of them had been sentenced to six months in juvenile hall for breaking and entering.

Harry's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a loud growl coming from his midriff and he sighed slightly, when he looked down to his stomach. Part of the game his aunt and uncle were playing was to give him only cold leftovers while he was in their house, but luckily Harry had stopped by Gringotts right after the train had arrived, and had changed a little amount of Galleons into Muggle currency, which he kept hidden from Dursley-view at the bottom of his trunk. So this whole summer he had been able to eat at different restaurants and diners, allowing him for the first time in his life, to try out other cuisines than the British one: he had experimented with Chinese, Indian, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mexican and even French dishes in a wide variety of tastes and smells, which he had to admit where very to his liking.

And since today he was in the mood for something spicy he walked out of the park and directed his steps on Marguerite's Lane towards Garden Road, where a little Indian restaurant, which made Uncle Vernon rant on and on about strangers infesting our culture and stealing away jobs from honest, hard working citizens, had opened a few years back. Those empty tirades always made Harry more than a bit angry, but he had decided not to say anything so as to preserve the little peace and freedom he had. He had though noticed that whenever Uncle Vernon started with one of these lectures again, Dudley threw him short glares, quickly looking back to his plate though, before anyone could see him.

And again Harry found himself thinking about his cousin, while he entered the _Krishna_, where Mr Kulkarni greeted him cordially, before bringing him to his usual table while exchanging some pleasantries. Harry mulled a little over the menu, before ordering his favourite dish and some water to go with it.

He liked the food he received at Hogwarts, but he had never been able to completely get used to the consumption of pumpkin juice during meals, so when he was away from school he preferred plain old tap-water while eating. And when Mr Kulkarni brought him his steaming cup of Chicken Korma, Harry forgot about his cousin and Voldemort and everything that was not his food for a bit, while he tucked in.

So when he looked out the window a few minutes later, without a care in the world, he nearly chocked violently as he saw his cousin of all the people walk by it with a very pretty girl at his arm.

Harry had to give his cousin credit for his taste in women, as he watched them walk by the window and Dudley open the door for her. She had dark, long hair, which she collected in a smooth ponytail at the base of her head and a thin face with a long, straight nose. The radiant smile drawn on her full lips filled her dark brown eyes with a warm, pleasant light. She was smaller than Harry, which meant that she just reached Dudley's chin, but Harry didn't have the impression that she was oppressed by his huge figure; on the contrary her presence nearly filled the entire room and Harry had the distinct feeling that his usually egoistic cousin was positively enjoying the attention, that his girlfriend got, effectively giving her the precedence.

They walked across the restaurant, her arm hooked into his, and stopped in front of Mr Kulkarni, who gave the girl a kiss on the cheek and shook hands with Dudley, who seemed to radiate joy out of every pore up to the tips of his short, blond hair.

Harry, who had been overlooked by his cousin, because he had been covered by other customers while the couple was entering, stood from his table and walked over to Dudley, who was at the moment obviously giving Mr Kulkarni a recount of the afternoon, as the little man stood before him with crossed arms and a light frown on his face, while the girl nodded now and then smiling alternately at her father and her escort.

"Hey, Dudley," Harry suddenly said to the back of his cousin, who nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his voice and turned around to face him with pure panic written all over his rough features. He blinked once, then twice, obviously trying to say something, but failing miserably at collecting enough of his mind to set it to the task at hand. When his girlfriend spoke to him he nearly winced before looking to her with wide eyes.

"Don't you want to introduce us, Dudley," she said with a tone somewhere between sweet and scolding, as if she was used to remember things for him. Dudley looked a few times back and forth between her and Harry, obviously lost for words, when Harry decided to step in for him.

"My name is Harry Potter," he said with a smile, while stretching his hand towards her. That finally seemed to rip Dudley out of his daze and he straightened himself clearing his throat, before he said, "Ahh, yes. This is my cousin Harry Potter, and this is Peeya Kulkarni."

"A pleasure," she said smiling, while she shook Harry's hand with a pleasantly soft grip.

"The pleasure's mine," he replied and flashed her a short smile. After an instant of silence, he ploughed on.

"Dudley hasn't mentioned to me, that he had a girlfriend. And such a beautiful one at that." She giggled at that and nodded shortly in recognition of his compliment.

"Well neither has he mentioned, that his cousin was visiting," she said and both of them turned to Dudley, who stiffened somewhat before he brought his hands up defensively and said, "Sorry?" Peeya smiled warmly at him and stroked his cheek softly before she said soothingly, "It's ok, dear. I'm sure you just forgot to tell me."

"Actually," Harry burst out in a sudden urge to come to his cousin's aid and stepped up to Dudley thumping him on the back. "He didn't know I was coming. I just arrived from Scotland and was planning on surprising him this evening, when he came home. We haven't seen each other for quite some time now, and I just wanted to make my visit a lasting one, you know?" he added by means of an explanation, throwing an apologetic look at a smiling and retreating Mr Kulkarni, who perfectly knew that Harry had been around for the better part of two weeks now.

"Oh, that's nice," she said and flashed Dudley a smile, which he returned shyly and as soon as Peeya wasn't looking at him anymore, he mouthed a "Thank you" at Harry.

Harry winked back and said, "And what a coincidence that I end up right into this exact restaurant, don't you think?"

As she smiled at him again, Harry stepped aside a bit, giving way to his table and added, "Don't you want to join me? I was just finishing up, and I would love to know, what my cousin's been up to, since I last saw him, and why he felt the need to keep you all to himself." Peeya accepted with a short nod and they sat down at the table together.

Half an hour later Harry had found out, that Dudley had been seeing Peeya for a little more than a year now and that the two of them had met over tutoring sessions for Dudley, who in the middle of his fifth year had slipped so much on his grades, that he had risked expulsion from the boxing team at school. So the teacher had proposed a tutor to him and had recommended Peeya, who had been top student in the parallel class.

"At the beginning," she giggled, "he was absolutely obnoxious and wouldn't open a book to save his life. But then I pounded some sense into his thick skull and it turned out that he can very well do it, if he puts some effort into it."

"I wasn't that bad," Dudley mumbled, looking at her reproachfully, but she just gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek.

"Well, darling, I wasn't the one thinking sine and cosine were ways to explain sudden weather changes," she said cocking her head a little to the side, and flashing him a disarming smile, which made Dudley's ears turn a deep shade of purple. Harry, who had no idea what a sine was either, just nodded and smiled sympathetically at his cousin's reaction.

Suddenly they were interrupted by Peeya's father, who leaned over the counter and called her, tipping slightly at the watch on his wrist, "Peeya, it's time."

"Oh," she exclaimed jumping to her feet. "I'm sorry, Harry. I guess we'll have to resume this another time, I'm afraid," she said with an excusatory nod, but Harry shook his head smiling and waving his hand dismissively.

"Of course, I understand," he said softly. "I was thinking about leaving anyway, since I'm quite beat from the voyage by train and all that. So don't let me stop you."

She smiled at him sweetly, and said, "Thank you. It's been a pleasure meeting you."

"The pleasure's been entirely mine," he replied and shook her hand, before he paid the bill, leaving quite an extensive tip and making his way towards the door. When he dropped his hand on the knob, he turned around a moment and said, "Wait for you outside, Dud."

The fresh breeze in his face announced the fading evening and Harry buried his hands in his pockets again, while watching the red and purple colours flee the sky to slowly make space for the dark blue of the night.

'So this is the big secret behind Dudley's change: a girl.' Harry chuckled. 'Who would have thought!' he mused, while breathing in the slightly chilly air. When he heard the door behind him open and close again he turned around, to find his cousin looking at him in a mixture of tiredness and defeat and the both of them started walking without so much as a word of consent between them.

"I like her," Harry started, smiling at his cousin and strolling down Garden Road towards Marguerite's Lane. "She's funny and cute and the two of you are a very nice couple."

Dudley mumbled a, "Thank you," out of the corner of his mouth, avoiding Harry's gaze and looking quite uncomfortable. Harry frowned a little, but his curiosity won over his sense of decency.

"I also think she is very bright," he ploughed on trying to make a little conversation.

"Yeah," was Dudley's monosyllabic answer and Harry's frown deepened. What was wrong with Dudley? He had made a very happy impression on Harry, when he walked into the restaurant with his girlfriend, and even though Mr Kulkarni had seemed a little on the edge – as every father of the universe probably was, when his daughter started to date a boy – Harry had received the distinct impression of him being rather fond of Dudley as his daughter's boyfriend. Plus, after talking to her, Harry was convinced that this girl wasn't only very pretty on the outside, but that she could have definitely given Hermione a run for her money. Not to mention that everyone who could melt Dudley like she had done, merited at least a Nobel Peace Prize.

So what was wrong now, with Dudley being all ashamed and dodgy about her? He should have been on his knees, kissing the floor she had walked on, for Christ's sake, and he hadn't more than one word sentences to contribute to her. But Harry didn't want to surrender the argument so quickly and he wanted to cheer his cousin up a little, so he dug his hands deeper into his pockets and said lightly, "I'm sure Aunt Petunia would like to get to know her and maybe…"

His voice trailed off, as he realized that Dudley had suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. When Harry turned around to face him, Dudley's features were unreadable, but his eyes were looking daggers at him.

"Harry…" he began and stopped immediately. He tried to start a few times over, until he finally said, "You can't tell Mum and Dad."

Harry was dumbfounded for a second, while he stared at his cousin, who seemed more determined than Harry had ever seen him.

"But…" he started, before Dudley cut him off instantly.

"Promise me!"

"But why," Harry finally said, pulling himself together. "She's smart, she's funny and she obviously likes you a lot, so what's the matter with you?" At that, his cousin exploded.

_"She's black, Harry!"_ he shouted at him, throwing his arms upwards.

"Well, technically she's Indian, so her skin colour isn't exactly black," he frowned at him accusingly, feeling a little surge of anger rise inside of him at such an Uncle Vernon-ish argument, but Dudley interrupted him again gesturing wildly with his thick arms.

"I know that, man. But geez, don't you get it? For Mum and Dad everything south of the Channel is Africa and you know how they are with everything that's not 'properly British'," he finished, literally collapsing on a nearby bench.

"I just don't want to see her get hurt," he said despairingly, sinking his head into his hands.

Harry mentally smacked himself over the head with a golf-club: how could he have been so stupid as to not recognize the precarious situation his cousin was in.

For everyone even remotely counting as normal Peeya must have appeared like a revelation from heaven to someone with a past like Dudley's, but Harry agreed with his cousin, that if the Dursleys should have ever discovered who Dudley's girlfriend really was, they would have moved heaven and earth to put a permanent stop to their relationship. Harry knew exactly how Uncle Vernon could get if someone made the mistake to let him get started on foreigners and people, who's only crime was to not have been born as 'proper' British citizens.

He shuddered slightly at the thought of Peeya's first visit at the 'Dursley Manor'.

"Do you love her, Dudley?" he asked directly, his voice cautious and soft, so only his cousin could hear him, even though the street was now completely deserted.

Dudley nodded slightly, gazing fixedly into empty space, and, in a sudden urge to comfort his cousin, Harry stepped up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not gonna tell, Dudley," he said smiling reassuringly at the sunken figure. "I promise."

At that Dudley looked up with surprise painted all over his face. Like a fish he opened and closed his mouth a few times mutely before he murmured, "You're not gonna…"

"…tell. No!" assured Harry with another slight squeeze of Dudley's shoulder, before straightening up and crossing his arms over his chest.

"But… but… after all I did to you, when we were…" Harry cut him off with an impatient wave of his hand.

"Ancient history, Dud. And besides, I have the feeling, that you're not going to have much liberty to screw around with her watching over you, now do you?" he grinned, sinking his hands back into his pockets again.

At that Dudley grinned back and said, "Well you're right concerning the fooling around, but concerning the screwing…" Harry nearly fell over.

"You… you didn't!" he stammered, his jaw hanging in the proximity of his knees. "Or did you?"

"I'm not saying anything," Dudley said, standing up from the bench with a hint of the old evil grin back on his face. "Gentlemen and all that, you know?" Harry actually needed a few seconds to recollect himself after this statement, but then a grin spread on his face as well.

"Yeah, right! Since when do _you_ know what a gentleman is or does, Dud." And he whacked his cousin over his massive shoulder.

"I guess I deserved that," Dudley chuckled and fell silent for a few steps, while they reached Marguerite's Lane. After a few more moments of silence, he continued.

"But honestly, Harry. I'm sorry…" his voice trailed off and Harry couldn't do anything else than smile at him and reply, "But honestly, Dud. It's ok." Then he breathed one gasp of the fresh evening's air and turned his gaze back to his cousin.

"There is one thing though, you could do, to make it up to me, you know?"

"What?" asked Dudley eying him up and down suspiciously.

"You could tell me some more about what you've been up to in these past two years."

The rest of their stroll home was used up almost entirely by Dudley's recount of what had happened since that fateful evening before Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts. How Dudley had fallen into depressions and had finally been saved by a girl, he was absolutely positive couldn't even stand him in the beginning of their relationship.

"So," Dudley finished a few minutes later, while they turned into Magnolia Crescent, "after I took a knee in front of her, with the whole school watching, and asked her out, she stood there for a moment, you know, and then she simply said, 'Yes'. But, boy, I have to tell you that for a second there I thought she was going to bite my head off." Harry chuckled and replied, "With such a charming introduction, how could she?"

"Yeah," Dudley grinned for a second, before his expression faded away so quickly, as if a light-bulb had burned out. In that respect he was irritatingly similar to his father, Harry thought, before pushing the thought aside, to listen to what would come next. The silence stretched a few more seconds, before Dudley ruptured it again.

"Harry… I have to know… I mean, if you can't tell me, I'll understand, but I have to ask you what… what these…"

"What it was, that attacked us that night," Harry finished, looking his cousin straight in the face. He had dreaded this question and now that Dudley had posed it, he strangely knew exactly what to say.

"Those creatures are called dementors, and until one and a half years ago they were the guards of the wizard prison of Azkaban," he said, an almost icy tone creeping into his voice. "They feed of positive human emotions, essentially leaving you with nothing but your worst memories."

Dudley's massive frame gave a short shudder, before he almost whispered, "And what was it about that kiss?"

Harry was shaken to find out that his cousin had been able to retain that piece of information even if he was in such a bad shape that night. But he also knew that now was the moment to come clean with his cousin, independently on his possible reaction.

Harry steadied himself before he said, "That would be the dementor's kiss, Dudley. It's their last weapon, the worst thing that could happen to you: with his kiss, a dementor sucks your soul out of your mouth. All that's left is an empty husk, that lives, but that's not truly alive." When he said the last phrase, Harry couldn't look his cousin in the eyes anymore and lowered his gaze to his shoes.

He felt guilty about what had happened to Dudley. Another innocent bystander hurt, just because he happened to be around him, when yet another one of Harry's many enemies decided that it was time for a little party. When a big hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed it gently, Harry almost cringed away from the contact.

"It's ok, Harry. It was not your fault," Dudley said with the hint of a smile playing around his mouth.

"But it was," Harry retorted, looking his cousin in the eyes. "They had specifically been sent to kill me. You were just…" But Dudley cut him off with an impatient wave of his hand.

"No, Harry. It wasn't your fault. It was the fault of the one sending those monstrosities." He straightened himself, before continuing with a voice that seemed to be carved out of ice. "It's always those people, who do these things and then push the responsibility on top of someone else, because they're too weak to stomach it themselves."

Harry looked at Dudley with a tired smile on his face.

"Dudley… I'm impressed. Since when have you become so wise?" Dudley grinned at that.

"I haven't. Peeya said that to me once… before she actually ripped my head off and used my skull as a bowling ball, because I had been a jerk to some second-years again," he added chuckling under his breath.

"But honestly, Harry. I think that that night's been the best thing that's ever happened to me." This took Harry completely by surprise, and before he could stop himself he asked, "What… Why?"

Dudley looked to the ground and shuffled his feet around for a moment or two. Having realised what he had said, Harry immediately added, "I'm sorry, Dudley. You don't need to tell me, if you don't want to. I'm just being stupid and…"

"No," Dudley interrupted with a steady voice, which admitted no argument about what he was going to say next. "You deserve to know." Both Harry and his cousin took a deep breath, before Dudley went on with the slightest wave of insecurity in his voice.

"At first there was only darkness and a chill that went right into my bones." Harry nodded at that: he knew the effects of a dementor attack all too well, but he kept his mouth shut and urged Dudley with a nod to go on.

"Then I suddenly stood on top of a mountain," Dudley recounted, his eyes wandering to empty space, seemingly staring into distance. "It was actually a moment before I realised the mountain was made up of human bodies, who were screaming and begging for mercy. I looked down and recognized them. I recognized every one of them." His voice broke at that and he had to breathe deeply, but when he continued, his tone was ripe with resolve, as if he wanted to get a weight off his shoulders he had been carrying around all too long.

"Everyone I ever bullied or beat up was there, Harry. They were all there, screaming and crying and I had to watch myself beat them over and over and over again. I couldn't stop it and I couldn't look away either. Every hit they took, I felt and every insult they endured, I heard. And I knew it was my fault… That I was alone and would be alone for the rest of my life and that I had no one to thank for, except myself."

"So that's what turned you around?" Harry stated calmly with his hands buried in his pockets.

Dudley nodded slightly.

"Yes. Or at least, that's what started it. At first I became almost twice as bad; just to take my self-loathing out on someone else. It took Peeya almost three months of continuous arse-kicking, to get me on the right track again. Sometimes I still wonder why she actually invested all that much in me. At the time I was on the best way to take a one way trip to juvie like Malcolm."

"Well," Harry smiled widely at his cousin, as they resumed their way home. "I guess she saw something in you that even you didn't realize was there. Not that I can see it even now," he added with a grin and they both laughed at that.

"Say, Harry," Dudley asked suddenly serious again. "These dementors, what do they look like exactly?" Harry looked back at his cousin in surprise and said, "Well they wear long black cloaks all over their body and their moves are kind of creepy, like they were gliding over the ground all the time. Why?"

"Because, speaking of creepy figures in black cloaks, do these guys belong to you, or should I be concerned?" Dudley responded indicating ahead of them and when Harry saw what he was pointing at, his steps immediately froze and his hand grabbed his cousin's arm, pushing him into the shadow of Number 18's open garage.

Around the tree standing exactly opposite Privet Drive Number 4 two dark clad figures wearing masks over their faces, whom Harry immediately recognized as Death Eaters, were trying to blend with the shadows surrounding them as the Martins were on vacation and no light was coming from Number 3 right now. However, they had not compensated for the fact that nights in the Muggle world were very rarely pitch black, and their inky cloaks stood out from their environment just a bit. Harry had to compliment his cousin for his eyesight, as he probably would have not been able to spot them in time.

"I guess, I should be concerned then?" Dudley's voice brought him back to his senses. "Who're those guys anyway?"

"Long story, Dud. You just need to know, that you should make as long a way around them, as you possibly can."

"Dark wizards, I take it?"

"Yeh," Harry nodded. "As dark as they come."

"So what do they want here?" Dudley whispered, while looking around, to see if there was any more of them.

"They want me," Harry said sourly.

"I get that, but why now?" Dudley retorted, looking at Harry, as he was incapable to spot any more dark cloaks in the shadows.

"I don't know, Dud," Harry shook his head slightly. "The Headmaster of my school, Dumbledore, has set up some pretty strong wards around your house, so until now the Death Eaters were never able to find me here, much less attack me."

"Death Eaters?" Dudley raised his brows. "How flattering."

"Yeah," Harry grinned at his cousin shortly, before returning his gaze to the two figures at Number 3. "I guess, they've finally found a way around Dumbledore's magic, but since they are still standing outside, I suppose they are either still not allowed inside the house, or they know, I'm not home and they are waiting to intercept me outside." Then he suddenly turned around and spoke directly to Dudley.

"Do you have any means to find out, if your parents are all right and if it's safe inside the house?"

"Sure," Dudley answered grabbing something inside his jacket. "Dad just bought this cell for me and gave it to me, my last birthday. At least once one of his presents will be useful," he grinned, while he typed his parent's phone-number in the tiny device.

"Hay, mum, it's me… is Dad home? Yes… And are you both ok? No, nothing to worry about. I'm on my way home… Yes… No… I'll be right there. Ok… Bye!" He snapped the little cell-phone closed and replaced it back into his jacket. "Everyone's all right in there," he said. "They don't seem to have noticed anything."

"Good!" Harry said with a decisive nod.

"So what do we do now?" Dudley asked, letting his gaze wander around again for a few seconds before fixing it on his cousin.

"We?" Harry asked and turned around to face Dudley directly. "Since when do you fight my fights, Dudley Dursley?"

"Since you know about Peeya and thus have my life in your hands," replied Dudley with a grin.

"Dudley, I would never…" Harry began, but was almost immediately cut off by his cousin, who put a hand on his mouth and looked back to the men under the tree in alarm, before he whispered, "I know, I know. And could you please talk a little louder. I think they haven't heard you over in York."

"Sorry," murmured Harry and gazed back to the street as he settled himself to a kneeling position. Dudley followed swiftly.

"I don't see any more than those two," he began. "But that makes me nervous. They usually come in packs. I'm almost sure, that they have at least a couple of men guarding the rear and everything except my wand's in the house," he mused. "So we can't take 'em head on."

"Can't you just teleport into the house, or something?" asked Dudley with a frown.

"It's called _Apparation_, Dudley," Harry corrected. "And, no, I can't Apparate, because they probably have some wards in place that either prevent any Apparation or warn them, if someone tries."

'Not to mention,' he thought by himself, 'that I haven't taken the exam yet.'

"I guess you have to somehow contact your people," Dudley thought aloud. "Can't you write them a letter with your owl, or something?"

"No. Hedwig is hunting at this time of night and it would take her too long to get to somebody useful… but wait," Harry exclaimed suddenly. "I have a mirror, with which I can talk instantly to a friend of mine. The problem is that it's in my trunk and they'll fry us the moment we show our faces in front of the house."

"Hold on, Harry," Dudley grinned at him. "They'll fry _you_. I'm just your stupid Muggle-cousin, remember? And since they haven't attacked the house yet, I guess it's safe for me to enter and get to this mirror of yours."

"That's one hell of an assumption, Dudley," Harry said with a frown. "These people kill Muggles for sports… and since when do you know what a Muggle is?"

Dudley just arched an eyebrow and turned around, pointing at his lower back. "You tend to remember certain things, especially when a giant with a pink umbrella attaches a tail to your arse," he said dryly, before kneeling back down and surveying the street again.

"What do you think is the area of effect of an – how did you call it – Apparation-ward?" Harry took a pensive expression for a few seconds, before he said, "Accounting for the fact that they couldn't have had much time to set them up, I guess half a mile at best, why?"

"Because then here is what we're gonna do, cousin." Dudley crouched down some more and began to talk in an urgent whisper. "I'm going inside and use that mirror of yours to call in the reinforcements. You meanwhile go to the park and get low there, while you wait for your guys. I'm going to pack all your stuff in one of my suitcases…"

"Why in one of your suitcases?" Harry interrupted.

"Because," Dudley answered a little irritated, "it's much more inconspicuous. I would recognize your trunk three miles away during a foggy day."

"Oh," said Harry a little dumbfounded. Peeya definitely seemed to have a good influence over much more than only his cousin's attitude.

"Yeah. Well, when I've finished packing your trunk and informing your guys, I'm coming to the park too and give you your stuff and you can be on your way, before these Death Chewers…"

"Eaters."

"Whatever… before they can even get a glimpse at you."

"Wow, that's actually a quite clever plan, Dud. Have you rehearsed for this?" Harry grinned at his cousin. Dudley frowned for a second, but returned the grin only a moment later.

"Don't make me regret that I'm helping you," he said with a low growl, but the glint in his eyes belied his harsh tone.

"Ok," Harry said with a smile of his own. "The mirror's in my trunk. To use it, you just hold it in front of you and speak into it like that girl did in that movie."

_"Like that girl did in that movie?"_ Dudley frowned at him. "Seriously, cousin, you are lacking some major pop culture references, but I get you. Now go and keep your head down."

And with a last nod Harry ducked out of the garage and snuck back to the street, where he crouched low and began to make his way to the park. He looked back over his shoulder once, to see his cousin strolling, seemingly without a care in the world, down the street to his house.

Harry just hoped that Dudley's assumptions were correct and that his cousin would in fact make it inside undisturbed.

Ten minutes later Harry was pacing up and down in front of the scarcely lit swings in the park. He wasn't chewing on his nails, but only because he had given up on that half a year ago. He wondered though where all the bigger stones around the swings had gone, before he remembered that he must have kicked each and every one of them away in exasperation.

What was taking the Order so long? If Dudley had contacted Remus as soon as he had gotten home, they should have been here by now.

Again Harry thanked every god within earshot for Remus' idea to restore his mirror, since the werewolf had found its counterpart in Sirius' room at Number 12 Grimmauld Place. They had used it throughout the entire last year as Remus had explicitly told Harry to call him whenever he felt like talking. And to be entirely honest, Harry had felt like that a lot, even if he had only taken the werewolf up on his offer when he felt that he would explode, if he wouldn't talk to somebody soon.

Now though Dudley would be able to contact the Order through it and with a little luck and God's help Harry would escape Voldemort's grasp once more, without even the necessity to fight.

'Damn you, Potter!' he kicked himself mentally, as he suddenly heard the scraping noise of shoes on gravel and turned around to see three dark clad figures melt out of the shadows. 'You just had to think that, didn't you.'

"Well, well, well… what have we here?" one of the Death Eaters sneered, while taking a few steps forward. "The little Potter boy, who thinks he can escape us by hiding here."

Harry took the few moments given him by the seemingly universal fault of bad guys to talk too much, and scanned his surroundings for cover and other useful ground features. He had though little luck as the only structure in a radius of five meters was the swing-frame, which offered little to no protection against incoming spells. There was though a stone bench a little to his right that looked solid enough to take most _Reducto_ and _Stupefy_ curses. The only problem was in reaching it, but if he was able to create a shield quickly enough, he might had a fighting chance.

Harry narrowed his eyes and focused back on the Death Eater, who was still blabbing something about terrible deaths and very satisfied Dark Lords. But he would never finish his ranting, as Harry had his wand in hand before anyone of the masked figures could react.

_"Protego!"_ he shouted and took a few running steps towards the bench, before he dove head first behind it. He heard a few _Stupefy_ and _Impedimenta_ shouts in the night and felt his wand twitch and buckle up in his grasp, as the spells hit his shield. He landed face down in the grass surrounding the bench and lost no time in scrambling to a sitting position, pressing his back to the cold and solid stone.

He heard the curses strike and splinter his cover, but the bench held its ground, so Harry could catch a quick gasp of air, before daring a glance at his attackers. He peeked around the bench and saw two more figures coming out of the shadows, bringing the total of his attackers to five. Their leader was already bellowing orders in a rasp voice, while Harry thought frantically what to do next.

The Death Eaters had begun to spread out, trying to surround him and Harry realized that he could do nothing but watch: he could have run for it, but the second he left his position they would pummel him with curses like there was no tomorrow, and the next cover was more than thirty meters away. So he couldn't hope to make a flight and stand his ground was almost as good as suicide.

But Harry James Potter hadn't survived four encounters with the Dark Lord himself because he surrendered in desperate situations. So, forcing his heart to calm down and taking a few deep breaths to clear his head, which was positively humming with adrenaline, he prepared himself to fight.

As one of the Death Eaters, who were trying to go around the bench, walked past a small boulder, Harry directed his wand at the stone and screwed his face up in concentration. This was going to be a difficult piece of magic and as Professor McGonagall always used to say, transfiguration wasn't something you could do with your mind on your dinner.

He took aim carefully, flicked his wand in a complicated twist and muttered the incantation under his breath. The boulder melted away into an unshaped blob, which though quickly changed its colour from grey to black, stretched a little and began to sprout tentacles, which formed quickly four legs, a head and a tail. Seconds later a fully fledged and very aggressive dog jumped the unwary Death Eater and sunk his teeth deep into the screaming man's arm. With a slightly malicious grin Harry observed the dark clad figure for a few seconds, who was desperately trying to get away from the animal, before he turned his gaze to the other side, where another Death Eater was just coming into view.

Harry pointed his wand directly at his face and yelled, _"Incendio!"_ The Death Eater's mask immediately erupted into flames and the man, who had already his wand at the ready, dropped it and clasped his face staggering back several steps. He clawed desperately at the garment in the attempt to rip it away, while his screams echoed muffled through the night.

Harry was already beginning to gather some hope, as the bench suddenly gave way to the continuous bombardment of curses and collapsed with a loud crack.

Harry staggered to his feet and stepped back, his wand warily outstretched before him, ready to deflect any spell coming his way immediately. The leader faced his colleague, who was still fighting with the now raging dog and shot something purple at it, that made the animal fly away several meters and land with a sickening crunch of breaking bones against the frame of the swings. The man stumbled to his feet and the last Death Eater finally ripped the mask off his face, turning his furious glare at Harry.

"You ruined my face!" he screamed, his voice shrill and broken by rage. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" The man's wand shot back to his hand and Harry prepared himself for his last fight, determined to take as many of them down with him, as he could.

But suddenly a bright orange flash exploded behind the man, hurling him forward so that he smashed into the ground only a few steps away from Harry's feet and a growling voice came from the shadows.

"Or you might as well not," said Alastor Moody with a grin that seemed to be slashing his scarred face in two. Behind him Tonks and Remus fanned out and lost no time in engaging the remaining Death Eaters in one on one duels.

Harry immediately sprang into action, facing the leader head on and soon everyone was entangled in furious duels, during which curses and counter-spells where exchanged so quickly, that the wands were sputtering sparks even in between incantations.

Harry dodged a spell, blocked another one and then went to counter-attack. He shot a quick volley of stunners at his enemy and while he was occupied with blocking them, Harry got to his knees and shot a leg-lock jinx under the Death Eaters defence. The man staggered and swayed, but kept his balance and responded by shouting, _"Tempesta Glacialis!"_ An entire swarm of razor-sharp ice crystals shot towards Harry, who quickly summoned a shield. He was though not quick enough and his cheeks were sliced open what felt a thousand times and only seconds later his chin was dripping in thick, red blood. But Harry pushed the needle-sharp pain from his conscious thoughts and focussed his attention to the slits in his adversary's mask, before shouting, _"Mobilicorpus!"_

Immediately the elbows and hands of the Death Eater snapped into a very puppet-like position, which would probably have been funny in another circumstance, but the man just shouted, _"Finite!"_ and his wand was outstretched in front of him within seconds… which was more than enough time for Harry to place a few well-aimed stunners directly into the man's face.

The Death Eater keeled over like an axed tree and before the dark clad figure could even properly settle itself to the ground he was disarmed and tied up like a salami.

Harry turned his gaze from his prisoner, and saw that Remus was dragging his adversary by his hood over to where Tonks was sitting, legs crossed, on her own. Moody quickly finished off the last Death Eater with a quite impressive partial levitation that turned the man upside down by his ankles and swung him around two or three times, before letting him crash down on to the rubble-covered ground. He grinned broadly again and tucked his wand away rounding on Harry.

"You all right, lad?" he asked Harry in his usual growling voice, while he settled one of his scarred hands on Harry's shoulder and giving the boy in front of him a short glance up an down, to see if he was injured. His eyes immediately stopped at Harry's cheeks, which were still streaming quite some blood down his chin, staining his shirt.

"Hey, Tonks!" he shouted over at the today green-haired witch, who was still sitting on top of her Death Eater as if he were a log of wood. "Come over here. Your type's required."

Tonks, who had been observing Lupin while he was transfiguring the wailing dog at the swings back to a boulder, looked over to the older Auror and immediately jumped to her feet when she saw Harry. She actually was so eager to reach the pair that she tripped and scrambled a few steps, before catching herself again.

Harry threw Moody a concerned look that said, 'Are you sure, she's not going to accidentally set me on fire?' but the old Auror just chuckled under his breath and winked at him with his good eye.

When Tonks reached him, she immediately started huffing over him with a preoccupied expression on her usually cheerful features.

"Oh, God, Harry," she bubbled away, "what did he do to you?"

"It was some kind of ice-spell, I guess," he said nonchalantly, as he was feeling almost no pain at all. He was though beginning to feel a little dizzy, to be completely honest, probably from the adrenaline withdrawal. Tonks moved his head expertly to one side and to the other, to examine the cuts and finally stepped back with a reassuring smile on her lips.

"I don't think it's poisoned or something, so a simple regeneration charm should do the trick," she said and drew her wand from a strap at the leg. She flicked it, drawing a complicated design into the air and muttered, _"Carnem Regeneratiam!"_ Harry immediately felt the stinging in his cheeks rise and for a moment he was concerned, that Tonks had made a mistake in the incantation, but soon the pain transformed into a pleasant tickling and only seconds later Harry touched his perfectly intact face again.

"Now that's better, isn't it?" she said jovially, before looking down with a frown at his bloodstained shirt. "But we can't let you walk around like that now, can we. They'll think you've murdered someone," she added with a grin before muttering, _"Evanesco!"_ Instantly the whole blood disappeared, leaving the merest hint of a shadow on Harry's white shirt.

"Thanks," he smiled at her, looking up after having checked the result of her spell.

"All included in the service," she winked back, "Though I'm afraid that the stain is going to stay. Blood is such a bitch to wash away. You might want to try _Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess-Remover_ to get it out, but else than that, I can't think of anything to…"

"It's ok, Tonks," he interrupted her fiddling. "I'm just grateful that I'm not going to die of blood-loss. Everything else is not that important. Thanks," he finally said giving the little witch a short hug. Tonks became instantly tomato-red, which contrasted horribly with her green hair, but smiled back at him and pulled herself together only after a few seconds.

"Don't embarrass Tonks too much, Harry," chuckled Lupin, while walking over, where they all stood. "She's just over the crush on you." This earned him a sound punch in the shoulder from Tonks, who was now looking daggers at him. Lupin though seemed very unfazed by it, flashing her a very charming smile and, to Harry's amusement, she smiled back at the scruffy looking werewolf.

"So," said Lupin suddenly rounding on Harry and dropping all cheeriness, "care to explain, what happened? I suddenly receive this weird message from this blond boy, through a mirror only you are supposed to know about, and he tells me that Death Eaters are in front of your doorstep and that you're waiting for pickup at the park near your uncle and aunt's house."

"Well," said Harry with a shrug, "he seems to have explained everything pretty well then, hasn't he."

"Yes, but Death Eaters are not supposed to be able to find you, when you're here in Surrey. Dumbledore has seen to it that you're safe here." Lupin frowned.

At that Harry's expression became hard and he crossed his arms in front of his chest, before saying defiantly, "Well, it's not the first time Dumbledore's plans don't play out as expected. I guess Voldemort has simply found a way to break through the wards and locate me."

Harry ignored Tonks' little flinch at the mention of Voldemort's name and stemmed his hands on his sides, glaring at Lupin and Moody, the first squirming a little, the second too scarred to read any kind of expression out of him.

"So now Voldemort knows were I am during my summers. Big deal! It's not like I'm going to come back here anytime soon, now is it?"

"Now don't jump the hippogriff, Harry," admonished Lupin, but was cut off by Harry almost immediately.

"It's my last year at Hogwarts, Remus," he said, his voice a little softer now. "I don't think Uncle Vernon is going to welcome me back into his house ever again, since I'm going to be legally of age as soon as I leave Hogwarts. So I will not be coming back here, even if I wanted to."

"I guess you're right," Lupin finally agreed, his shoulders slumping a little. "So we should get you out of here, I guess?"

"Just a moment," Harry said, and signed them with both hands to wait. "We have to…"

His word was cut off mid-sentence, as the ground between them suddenly erupted into a mighty explosion and they were thrown off their feet in all directions. Harry soared through the air spinning wildly and finally hit the ground hard, skidding several feet to a dusty halt. He coughed forcedly, feeling as if an entire handful of dirt was rattling around in his lungs, while his head spun so violently, that he thought he was going to throw up. When he opened his eyes, everything was blurred and fogged up, but when he reached his hand to his face, he found that his unclear vision depended more on the absence of his glasses than on his shaken self, so he immediately began to search the ground frantically.

He felt the panic rise inside of him and his heart hammering against his ribcage, while his fingers were unsuccessfully exploring the rough earth under them.

'Come on,' he thought, hearing steps to his left crackling on the rubble. 'Please, I need you.' Then suddenly without even realizing what he was doing, he shouted, _"Accio Glasses!"_ Suddenly he felt the familiar frame of his spectacles hit the palm of his hand and he immediately jerked them upwards onto his nose and whipped around to see… to see what he thought to be the last images of his life.

The Death Eater, which had been hit first by Moody, was towering over him, the now unmasked face burnt on the left side and madness glinting furiously in his eyes. Harry looked into them and saw only his own death, waiting for him, ready to swallow him whole, never to be seen again. Harry knew instinctively that this man didn't care if he lived or died, as long as he – Harry – died too in the process. When the Death Eater opened his mouth, Harry knew what he was going to say, the last words he was ever going to hear:

_"Avada Kehh…"_ But suddenly the madman took in a sharp gasp of air and arched his back, as his face contorted itself in pain and he stumbled to the right, giving way to the sight of – Dudley.

Incredulously Harry watched as his cousin followed the Death Eater with quick dancing steps, like those Harry had seen him use in his boxing videos. Still scrambling the dark clad figure jerked around, levelling his wand at whatever new threat was attacking him, but Dudley was on top of him with two swift strides ducking under the outstretched arm, and sank his fist into the man's stomach.

Before Harry could even blink, Dudley extended a well-placed one-two and finished off his adversary with a smashing uppercut to his chin, which nearly lifted the grown man from his feet. The Death Eater fell to the ground in a crumpled heap and Dudley stood over him a few seconds, panting heavily.

"Dudley," gurgled Harry, his lungs still full of dirt. No reaction.

Harry scrambled to his feet and swayed one or two times, before he could find a steady footing and coughed repeatedly, to clear his dry throat.

"Dudley!" he shouted and this time his voice seemed to have an effect on his cousin, as Dudley's head jerked up at the same time as his fists, before he recognized Harry and finally relaxed. Dudley had to breathe in deeply several times, before he could speak.

"Is he down?" he asked almost incredulously, his gaze whipping back and forth between the unconscious Death Eater and his cousin.

"Pretty much," coughed Harry with a grin spreading on his face, as the whole irony of the situation slowly began to sink in. "You knocked him out cold, Dud. You… You saved my life." At that the both of them could only stare at each other for several seconds, their jaws hanging open stupidly.

And then they both erupted into laughter. At first it was a little tense, but soon they both laughed out freely and so hard that they had to lean against each other to avoid falling over. For the first time since they knew each other – which was in fact ever, as Harry remembered with a little twinge – they both laughed in unison and together thumping each other on the back like friends.

How much time they had wasted on their ridiculous feud over all these years, in which they could have done so many things together. And Harry had to admit, that it hadn't been entirely Dudley's fault too.

"Harry. Harry!" came suddenly Lupin's voice form the dust-clad shadows surrounding them, which made Dudley immediately snap back into fighting stance. But Harry laid a hand on his thick arm soothingly and called, still laughing, "We're here, Remus!"

Only a second later the werewolf stepped into view coughing slightly and waving his hands around to disperse the fine dust of the explosion that still clung to the air surrounding him. Right after him was Tonks, her green hair now covered in a thin layer of brown and grey equally flailing around with her arms.

"Where's Moody," Harry asked immediately noticing the missing Order-member, but Lupin waved dismissively, a smug grin on his face.

"He's back there," he said thrusting his thumb over his shoulder. "He's been thrown against that swing and his wooden leg's broken, but he's repairing it at the moment, so he'll be fine in a minute."

"More like right now," Moody's growling voice came from behind Tonks, before he stepped past her and Lupin over to the last Death Eater. "Must be loosing my touch," he said grumpily, prodding the crumpled figure with his restored prosthetic limb. "If even such a lowlife scum can recuperate from one of my stunners that fast, I really must be getting old."

"Don't blame yourself Moody," said Tonks putting a hand on the old Auror's shoulder. "Maybe he had some sort of absorption charm on him, or something," she said looking down at the Death Eater too. "And Harry's Ok, so everything's all right. Right?"

"Yeah, Harry's all right already," Moody growled again. "But no thanks to me." And with that he looked up, his magical eye swivelling onto Dudley's massive frame, as he said, "Thanks, lad. I owe you one."

Dudley immediately reddened violently, oddly remembering Harry of an angry Uncle Vernon, but the thought left his mind as fast as it had entered it, and he turned to the others announcing proudly, "This is my cousin Dudley Dursley."

Then he turned over to Dudley and did the honours.

"Dudley, meet Alastor Moody, one of the best Aurors the Ministry ever had…"

"Well, not so good anymore, it seems," growled Moody, as he stretched his gnarly hand forward for Dudley to shake.

"…Professor Remus Lupin, my Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher during third year…" Again they shook hands.

"…and finally Nymphadora Tonks, also Auror for the Ministry of Magic."

When Dudley took her diminutive hand in his giant palm, he smiled shortly and instead of shaking it, he just held it for a moment, hinting a small bow, at which Tonks sniggered. Then Dudley turned back to Harry and asked, "Auror?"

"Kind of a Police Special Forces," Harry explained shortly at which Dudley nodded apprehensively.

Then Moody thumped him on the shoulder and chuckled, "You got a nice swing there, lad."

"Uhm, thanks," said Dudley with a smile to the old Auror. "And your floating and whirling thing sure was cool too."

"Ahm," Lupin cleared his throat a little awkwardly. "I hate to interrupt, but I think we should go, before they send reinforcements or something like that. The Ministry Commando for Magical Catastrophes should be here any minute now, but until then we're serving ourselves on a platter."

"I agree," said Moody grabbing the Death Eater by his cloak and dragging him over to where the others lay still unconscious. "I'm going to deliver this lot here to Azkaban and be at the Order later."

"Right," said Lupin and Tonks in unison just a second before Moody and the little heap of soon-to-be-prisoners disappeared form sight.

"We have to go too," Lupin said curtly, glancing around nervously.

"But my stuff…" Harry started, only to be cut off by his cousin's hand on his shoulder.

"Got it all over there," he said pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Had a hard time explaining that to Mum, since she saw me with the suitcases on the porch."

"And what did you say," asked Harry, who now saw two metallic suitcases standing a little way down on one side of the path, one of them lying flat on the ground obviously left there in a hurry.

"I told her I was leaving the house," Dudley said with a straight face, "to live in a little flat in London with my boyfriend." Harry nearly missed a step as he rounded on his cousin.

"You didn't."

"Of course I didn't, you twit," Dudley chuckled under his breath, "or you would hear her screams till Dover. I told her, I was going to stay for a night at Pierce's."

"And she believed you? With two suitcases?" Harry frowned at his cousin.

"Harry, she would pack me a suitcase if I was going for a day-walk to the mall. I just told her, I packed my computer, so that Pierce and I could play a few rounds of _Mega Death 4_."

"But you sold that a year ago."

"Harry," Dudley sighed, throwing his arms upwards in exasperation. "Are you trying to be difficult on purpose, or has that mask-guy hit you harder than it looks."

"Sorry, Dud," Harry said, looking at his cousin apologetically. "I just don't want you to get into any trouble because of me."

"Ah!" Dudley waved his hand dismissively, as he bent down and picked up one of the two suitcases from the ground. "It'll be ok. They always believe me. I'll just go over to Peeya's and ask if I can stay on the couch for the night."

"And her father's gonna… Uff… let you?" Harry asked doubtfully, while straining under the weight of the second suitcase.

"We'll think of something. Don't worry," Dudley grinned at Harry as they reached Lupin and Tonks, who were just finishing the calibration of a Portkey, which would bring them to Grimmauld Place.

"Do you have everything?" Lupin asked glancing critically at the two suitcases.

"Yup," answered Dudley in Harry's stead. "I packed everything I found in your room. Hope your clothes aren't too wrinkled up. I was kind of in a hurry."

"I'm sure they won't be, thanks Dud."

"Don't mention it." Then suddenly Dudley became a little uncomfortable and looked at Harry insecurely, before stretching out his hand at him hesitantly.

"So… friends?" he asked awkwardly and Harry looked at his cousin's hand blankly for a few seconds, clearly taken aback at Dudley's insecurity.

Then he came to a decision and said, his voice ripe with determination, "No. Family!"

Dudley's face, which had faltered for a moment at his first reply, brightened when Harry took his hand and shook it brotherly. And Harry felt his heart, oppressed by so much fear, anger and dolefulness over the years, lighten somewhat with the knowledge that today he had forged a new friendship with someone he would never have suspected.

With a last squeeze they let go and Dudley took a few steps back, to give them room for whatever mysterious transport-procedure they were going to use. Harry held up his hand in a parting wave and said, "I'll be in touch."

"I'll wait to hear from you then," Dudley waved back. "And find yourself a girlfriend," he added grinning widely. "Just look what mine's done for me."

At that Harry's face too split into a wild grin, before he felt the usual jerk behind the navel and was whirled away into the darkness.

_**A/N:** I hope I didn't shock you too much... A reformed Dudley... Tztztz.   
See you in the next chapter.   
**Quiz Resolution:**   
Robbie's inventor and the author of too many great storys and books to be all mentioned here was **Isaac Asimov**. If you ever come across one of his books or short stories, I strongly recommend it. And if you liked this quiz, you may want another one:   
**After whom or what has Mr Kulkarni named his restaurant?**_


	3. The Visit

_**A/N:** I'm terribly sorry this update took me so long, but on top of my enormous workload at the university, some moronic publisher in the US (I'm not kidding) and assorted other catastrophes, which threatened to sink my university project… I had writer's block and had to re-write this chapter a few times, before I liked it.   
Again many thanks to my little brother for beta-reading and to anyone, who has taken the time to review.   
And on we go!_

**Chapter 3 – The Visit**

Robert hadn't exactly been sure what to think of the whole letter-affair, especially when he had discovered the very unusual messengers that delivered them. But what had happened after he had sent back one of these owls with his answer, seemed to redefine the meaning of _strange_ on a daily basis.

The very next day a short man seemingly in his late-fifties, clad in a somewhat old-fashioned suit and a brilliantly yellow Basque-hat had shown up at his doorstep, presenting himself as Arthemis Felton and claiming to be a representative of the Ministry of Magic. Under normal circumstances Robert would have been torn between laughing out loud and calling an ambulance for the poor man. But considering the events of the past week he looked the man up and down critically, before stepping aside and inviting him in.

When they reached the kitchen, Eliza was just about to finish her breakfast. At the sight of the unusual visitor, she jumped from her chair, to welcome the man, which provoked a surprised smile from Mr Felton.

"And this must be Eliza," he said bowing down a little to shake her hand. After a short glance to Robert, and an approving nod from him, Eliza grasped the man's hand and shook it vehemently.

"Yes, sir. That's me."

"What a spirited young girl," Mr Felton beamed down at her, before straightening up and looking apologetically between the not entirely consumed breakfast on the table, his daughter and himself. "But I seam to be interrupting…"

"Not at all, Mr Felton," Robert replied with a smile. "We were just about to finish breakfast. But we have some bacon and scrambled egg left, if you want to join us." Felton looked insecure for a few instants at such a proposal, but obviously magical officials were as overwhelmed with work as normal ones and Robert had the distinct feeling that his guest hadn't had anything to eat before his visit.

"If you don't mind…" Felton smiled and Eliza immediately pulled out a chair for him, while Robert walked over to the pan.

"You're welcome," he said, while he was piling the reminder of the eggs and bacon on a plate. "After all, matters of great concern should be discussed lightly."

"And matters of small concern should be treated seriously," Felton grinned back from his chair and added a smiling, "Thank you," when Eliza brought him a knife and a fork from the drawer. Robert stopped for a second, before he laid the plate in front of Felton.

"I am impressed, Mr Felton," he smiled back at the older man, while he seated himself again.

"The Hagakure is seldom known so well, even amongst us normals. Is it a common lecture among mages?"

"Wizards, Mr Morrigan," the old man replied kindly, while folding his Basque into a neat roll and stuffing it into his pocket. "And no, the Bushido or the Hagakure are almost unknown to my people. I just read them because I have a passion for philosophy. _Bon appetite._"

The next half an hour was then pleasantly spent chit-chatting about different things, mostly concerning the wizarding world and its workings. At a certain point Felton transformed – or rather transfigured, as he called it – a teaspoon into a vase full of flowers, to the great and joyful clapping of a delighted Eliza.

Felton seemed to think this proof enough of the existence of magic, but Robert remained suspicious: after all he knew what astounding effects could be produced with very simple means and as a man of science he would believe in the existence of magic only when he saw it performed in a controlled environment.

He figured however that it would be rude to ask, "Dear Mr Felton, would you mind accompanying me to the university lab, so I can stick a lot of probes everywhere into you?"

No, that was definitely not going to win him a new friend, he decided.

He tuned right back in to hear Felton say, "…so underage wizardry is strictly forbidden outside of Hogwarts as long as you aren't of age."

"And when is that," Eliza asked with gleaming eyes.

"When you are seventeen, I'm afraid, dear," Felton gave back with the knowing smile of an adult that has to explain to a child, that it's not yet time to unpack the presents. And Eliza's slight pout was sure enough proof of Robert's assessment of his daughter's intentions. Then something else came to his mind.

"You reach legal age at seventeen?" he asked a little surprised. "We normals…"

"The term is 'Muggles', Mr Morrigan," Felton corrected, but a sudden surge of giggles made his surprised gaze swivel over to Eliza.

"That sounds like something our teacher at school would give us lines for."

"Oh! I guess you could look at it that way," Felton said slightly befuddled at first. But only a moment later he exchanged a smile with Eliza, who was now trying hard to suppress her giggling.

But all humour had escaped Robert. Felton seemed to realize this, as he turned his attention back to him.

"British citizens," Robert began again, noticing a slight sting in his voice that he immediately tried to subdue, "become of age at eighteen." He waited a second to see if Felton had reached the same conclusion as he had, but the man only displayed vague puzzlement.

"Does this mean," Robert continued, "that Wizards are not bound by our laws?"

Felton stopped dead. He blinked once, his mouth a thin, straight line.

Robert was pretty good at reading people. He did it all the time, so he had a lot of practice. But right now Felton was as blank as a wall of polished marble. Robert could tell that he was thinking, but he didn't have the slightest idea what conclusion the old man was reaching.

Finally Felton sunk back in his chair, while a barely audible sigh escaped his mouth. When his eyes met Robert's again, they literally swam in guilt.

"I am sorry."

Robert sat back in his chair. This had been the last thing he had been expecting Felton to say.

"I am terribly sorry about this… It's our fault… We should have noticed…" Felton sighed once more and steadied himself for what he had to say next.

"This should not have happened. At least not like this," he said in a grave tone, but his eyes were now steady.

"Parents of magically inclined children are usually instructed and introduced into our world bit by bit over a period of at least a year, before their children come to be of age to attend Hogwarts. This is done to gradually accustom both the parents and the children."

"So what happened in our case then?" Robert asked in a much softer tone than his last question. Robert could tell, the man was genuinely sorry and he wasn't one to add to someone else's guilt.

"We thought that in your case the instruction would not be necessary." When Robert stared at him, not understanding what he was saying, Felton blurted it out, like if he said it quickly it would hurt less. "We thought your _wife_ would tell you."

Robert felt the words like a fist in his stomach.

He glanced over to Eliza, who sat stunned in her chair, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. But only just: Not one drop ran down her cheek.

His gaze whipped back to Felton, while he felt his face tense and his fists clench.

"What?" He hadn't shouted or growled, but his voice had that same sharp and piercing tone that had made so many men cower or jump at his every word. Felton winced slightly as if that one word had been a whip through his face. But he pulled himself together almost immediately.

"Your wife was a witch, Mr Morrigan. I have everything here to prove it," he continued apologetically. Robert just extended his hand and received three rolls of parchment. One was Maria's birth certificate, elegantly written on the yellowish scrolls of parchment that the wizards seemed to prefer. The second and third ones seemed to be reports from Maria's fifth and seventh year of school. The first one was entitled "Ordinary Wizarding Level" and the second one "Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test". And both bore the Hogwarts crest exactly as it had been on the numerous letters to Eliza.

Robert realized with a shock that he had never seen a single scrap of paper from Maria's past, but all of a sudden it all made sense – in a strange and twisted sort of way.

Robert heard Felton resume where he had left off, but could just barely register it.

"In families where only one of the parents is magically gifted, the ministry's policy is not to interfere with family-affairs. We just thought that your wife would tell you, when she deemed the time to be right."

"But she's been dead for six months now." It was a barely whispered phrase, but the tension shattered like porcelain in a car-crusher. He and Felton both turned to Eliza, who sat in her chair as if made out of ice, her eyes big and demanding an answer, but both of them dry again.

"I'm afraid," Felton began, "that the Ministry of Magic has not been working as efficiently lately as it should have and I'm mortified to say that my department is responsible for this lapse: We did not know your mother was dead until a few days ago, when your letter reached Deputy Headmistress McGonagall," Felton finished looking from Eliza over to him.

His eyes were begging for forgiveness and now that Robert's temper started to settle down again, he began to notice other details that had escaped him before: the subtle rings under the old man's eyes, the sunken cheeks and the slight pallor of his skin were clear signs of continuous stress and entire nights of lost sleep. Robert guessed that all these signs had been camouflaged by Felton's spirit up until now. And sure enough he had probably made every effort to disguise them.

But now he lay open in front of Robert as if he had finally cracked under the weight of a monstrous rock and suddenly aged an entire decade all at once. The man was more than just tired, he was exhausted.

"I understand." Robert heard the beast in him claw at its cage. It wanted to punish the man and everybody else in this so-called Ministry for their mistake, for the pain they had caused Eliza and ultimately him. But he finally silenced its roaring and fixed Felton.

"I guess not even mages… Oh excuse me, Wizards," he corrected himself with the hint of a smile. "Not even Wizards are immune to error." He sat back, one hand still on the rolls of parchment on the table.

"I guess not," Felton responded with visible relief on his face.

Suddenly Robert felt a tugging on his left sleeve and his gaze, which finally left Felton, swivelled around to reveal Eliza standing at his side, smiling reassuringly with a hand on his shoulder. Again Robert felt memories wash over him for a second.

'She looks so much like her mother,' he thought, feeling his heart squeezed in what seemed to be a vice. Then the moment passed and Eliza turned around to Felton, all resolute determination.

"Tell me about Hogwarts, Mr Felton," she said standing there, too short to put her elbow on Robert's shoulder, but nonetheless as fierce and protective as a lioness defending her pups.

"Well… Where to begin," Felton started, leaning back heavily into his chair himself.

The next fifteen to twenty minutes Felton sounded exactly like another one of these talent scouts, Robert had met, who had _absolutely_ wanted Eliza to join _their_ schools, although the usual sleaziness was completely absent, thank God.

When Felton finished talking about the marvellous possibilities, which opened up for every student of Hogwarts – where Aurors supposed to be some kind of gardeners? – Robert had sat back again, his arms crossed over his massive chest.

"I see…" he mused a moment glancing over at Eliza, who was positively bouncing on her toes by now. He knew that everything Mr Felton had said must have seemed very exciting to every eleven-year-old and he knew his daughter well. So the next thing he did got the expected reaction from both Eliza and Mr Felton.

"Eliza," he said, "I want you to go upstairs and stay in your room for a while." And before she could even open her mouth for a reply, Robert added in a calm, but nevertheless pressing tone, "Now, please!"

She stood there for a moment and Robert saw the spirit to argue just underneath her jewel-like eyes, but in the end Eliza gave in and turning to Mr Felton, she said:

"Please excuse me, Mr Felton. It was a pleasure meeting you."

"And you, my dear," he had answered, rising from his seat and extending his hand over the table, so that Eliza could shake it. Then she disappeared through the kitchen door, but not before throwing a pouting glance back at Robert, who had to suppress a grin.

When his gaze went back to his guest Mr Felton was still standing at the table, staring at the spot where Eliza had just disappeared. Finally he sighed and sat down again, still not meeting Robert's eyes.

"I guess playtime is over. Isn't it, Mr Morrigan?" he said almost apologetically. When he finally looked up at him, Robert knew that the old man had expected such an end from the very moment he had rung the bell.

"I guess it is, Mr Felton," he answered slowly, picking up his mug of cocoa – he had never been able to get used to coffee, no matter how much he had tried. But even if the content of the mug had been pink-coloured, broccoli-flavoured mud, it would have been the excuse he needed to think over his reaction for a second.

When he sat the mug down again to address Felton, he found his guest looking at him… very surprised. He noticed this odd detail only at the edge of his consciousness, and just a moment later the expression vanished from Felton's face. But nonetheless there was no other way to describe it and the suspicion that had loomed in him throughout this encounter, was awakened again with burning fervour.

He drew himself up and rested his elbows on the table, his fingers intertwined.

"I understand everything you have told me, Mr Felton. And I admit, that most of it as well as the proof you have shown me sounds and looks very convincing indeed," he had begun. "But I also know that a lot of what you have shown me today can be faked."

At that Felton started to retort something, but Robert stopped him raising his hand, and continuing as if no interruption had occurred at all.

"And let's not forget the little misunderstanding, to which we have to attribute our current situation." He knew that he was using a quite diplomatic expression to describe the Ministry's blunder, but Felton's cheeks flushed nonetheless as he sunk back into his chair.

"So you will excuse me, if I remain sceptic of the whole thing, Mr Felton."

"But I can assure you that everything I said is true, Mr Morrigan," he said, drawing himself to the table and sitting at the edge of his chair, as if his argument would have been strengthened by him doing so. Robert met him steadily, his mind set on the task ahead.

"We are talking about the future of my daughter, Mr Felton, so excuse me if I can't take your assertions at face value. Judging by her school-reports, she is a gifted young girl with a knack for numbers, which will – by your description – go completely to waste at Hogwarts. And she already has a guaranteed spot at one of the most prestigious schools of this country. So as the facts stand right now, Mr Felton, I cannot allow her to attend Hogwarts. Can you understand that?"

"Yes, but…" Felton began to reply, but stopped almost immediately, obviously rethinking what he was about to say. He started two times over, but stopped almost at once again. In the end he simply shook his head and replied:

"Of course. I understand completely." He paused another second and then continued, this time with an almost pleading voice.

"But you have to understand our position as well: as long as Eliza isn't properly trained, she will represent a constant security risk for the Ministry. She could uncover our entire society with a single outburst of wild magic."

"To be completely honest with you, Mr Felton, I seem to have missed the part where this is my or Eliza's problem." Feltons face crumbled completely at that, his chin hanging limply from his face, his eyes staring unbelievingly at him. Robert let this sink in for a moment, to strengthen his position.

"Where it becomes Eliza's problem though," he then continued, "is that I know people. And I know that Eliza's talents will either be feared or exploited by the rest of society. Am I correct, Mr Felton?" Felton just nodded suspiciously, probably waiting where Robert would go with his conclusions.

"So the only safe option for her is to learn how to control her magic."

"Yes!" Felton exclaimed immediately, but Robert raised his hand again and the old man fell silent again.

"Hogwarts though is not the only option, Mr Felton. As I see it, Eliza could be taught at home how to control her magic, while attending a normal school, couldn't she?" Felton needed a moment to respond. He obviously hadn't thought of this possibility.

"Well… I guess…" he finally brought out. "But Eliza seemed very interested in attending Hogwarts," he continued. "Shouldn't we at least ask her what she wants?"

"I fully well know that my daughter would love to attend Hogwarts, Mr Felton. Every eleven-year-old would jump at the possibility to learn how to do magic." Felton grinned slightly, thus acknowledging his argument.

"But as her father I have the responsibility to decide what is best for her. At the same time though, I don't want to impede her development in any way. Do you understand my dilemma?" the old man's silence told Robert all he needed to know. The two men sat quietly for a while, until Robert finally spoke again.

"I might take Hogwarts into consideration as a possible option for my daughter's future, Mr Felton, but only under one condition: I want to visit Hogwarts, to shape my own opinion about the place."

Felton sat back in his chair, while another sigh escaped his lips.

"Yes. Headmistress McGonagall informed me about your request." He paused for a second, as if ordering his thoughts and when their gazes met again, Robert could see the glint of resolve in Felton's eyes.

"I have to tell you though, that this request cannot be granted."

"I am afraid that I have to insist on it, Mr Felton," he replied calmly and after a short moment during which Felton was looking around the kitchen, obviously thinking hard for a solution to the problem, he shook his head in resignation.

"Then I guess it will be private lessons then, Mr Felton?" Robert concluded.

"I'll have to discuss this with my superiors, Mr Morrigan," Felton replied, "but it's the best solution I can think of right now."

They both nodded in unison, as if sealing a pact and stood up together from the table. Robert began to lead the way to the front porch, but suddenly he felt something caress his cheek, as if a sliver of air had snaked its way through the corridor. When he looked back he found Felton still standing at the table, surprise written all over his tired face.

Robert waited another moment, before he said, "Mr Felton? This way, please?"

The old man blinked twice, before he tore himself out of his trance, responding rather embarrassedly, "Ah… yes, of course." Robert let him take the lead this time and when Felton was out the door he turned around once more.

"A pity, that we couldn't reach an understanding, Mr Morrigan. But I have to thank you nonetheless for an excellent breakfast."

"No, Mr Felton. I have to thank you for your effort. You have been very helpful and I whish, we could have met under better conditions."

"Same here. Give my best to Eliza."

"I will."

Robert watched the little man walk down the street for a while, his brilliant-yellow Basque clearly visible even from a distance, until he turned the corner into Turing Street.

There was no doubt that Robert was still sceptic about this whole affair, but one thing was for certain: If most wizards were like Felton, they sure as hell deserved a chance.

Three days had come and gone without any further notice or letter from the wizards, and Robert thought the matter concluded. Even Eliza had come to the grudging acceptance that she wouldn't be off to some cool magic school after all and by the pout she had worn for the entire day after Felton had come by, Robert deduced that she wasn't happy about it.

So it came to a surprise for both of them, when on the morning of the fourth day an owl soared through the open kitchen window and landed neatly on the back of one of the free chairs. As Robert detached the parchment from the outstretched claw, he noticed that the owl was the same that he had used a week ago for his answer.

"I don't know where this Hogwarts is, Chubby," he said to the patiently waiting bird, "but they're making you run quite a bit, don't they?" He followed the birds glance and saw a piece of bacon on his plate that he hadn't eaten yet. "Here!" he said and threw the bacon at the owl, who plucked it neatly out of the air and began to nibble on it with a smug expression.

The giggle at the other end of the table brought his gaze to Eliza, who said, "Chubby?"

"Well, it looks a little like uncle Chubby, don't you think?" he said with a grin, referring to Charles "Chubby" Kessler, a professor for astrophysics, who came by now and then. He had been a friend since Robert's early teaching days and both Maria and Eliza had liked him on the spot, so nobody had objected when Eliza had called him 'uncle' for the first time.

The giggle he got as a response to his comment seemed to mean that Eliza saw the same similarities between the bird and the little, plump man with huge, friendly eyes that brought her presents each time he visited. So he turned his attention back to the letter and opened the envelope.

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY   
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore   
(Order of Merlin, First Class,   
Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump,   
International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Prof. Morrigan,_

_After cautious scrutiny of your appeal to visit our institution, the Headmaster and Board of Governors have decided to grant your request. You will be allowed to enter and thoroughly inspect every part of Hogwarts and its grounds at your leisure. If you whish to speak with teachers and staff, please kindly inform us about your intentions, so as to allow us to schedule the appointments beforehand.   
Should you accept this invitation a member of staff will pick you up at your house at your earliest convenience._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall   
Deputy Headmistress_

"What's it saying, papà," asked Eliza with eyes as huge as dinner plates, the moment he had finished reading the last sentence.

He considered her question for a second, trying to decide what this letter really meant. He had expected to hear from the wizards again, certainly, but he had guessed that the next letter he would get by owl would contain instructions about when, where and how Eliza would be tutored to control her power.

"I guess," he began after a while, "it means that you might go to Hogwarts after all, dear."

Eliza rushed near him and peered over his elbow at the letter, her grin spreading with each word she read.

"You mean I'm going?" she asked again, when she had finished reading. He looked down at her with a slight frown.

"It means," he began with a warning undertone, "that I will consider it, young lady."

Eliza's smile broadened a little more and her eyes sparkled with barely contained joy, but she kept from jumping around the kitchen, or punching the air… but only just, Robert noticed with a smile of his own.

Bringing his attention back to the letter, he reread the last sentence and then looked up to the owl, which was just swallowing the last piece of bacon.

"I guess, you're the return messenger, aren't you?" The bird looked back at him and blinked once firmly.

"Oh, well. I guess you'll have to visit grandma alone tomorrow Eliza," he said with a sigh and stood up from the table to go into his study. When he came down with the answer, he found the owl sitting on the table, nibbling affectionately at the nose of a giggling Eliza.

"I think Chubby likes your bacon, papà," she said between fits of laughter indicating Robert's now empty plate. The bird took Robert's frown with a careful amount of indifference and ruffled its feathers, before Robert walked over and fastened his letter to the outstretched foot.

"Here, you mugger," he said with a tone that belied his expression. "Now get out of here and don't fly into any power lines, you hear me?" The bird ruffled its feathers again indignantly and flew out of the open window.

Robert gazed a moment to where the owl had disappeared to, wondering for a second if he was making the right decision. But one glance over into Eliza's expectant eyes told him everything he needed to know.

In the end everyone needed at least a chance.

The next day Robert was pacing up and down the kitchen restlessly, throwing a short glance at the clock every time he walked past the fridge.

'Stop that,' he admonished himself, forcibly driving his steps over to one of the chairs. 'The clock is not going to run any faster, because you look at it every other second.' But there was nothing to it nonetheless, and Robert realized he was nervous. Which was actually another reason for his short temper at the moment; he had stared down the barrel of a gun and walked across enemy fire more than once, but this simple visit still felt rather awkward.

He sat down and took a few calming breaths, wondering about what he was going to see today.

For a second an image he had once seen on the cover of one of his science-fiction books flickered before his eyes. It portrayed a room that had apparently been designed by M.C. Asher with fantastic creatures sticking out of doors and passageways at impossible angles.

'Don't be silly,' he though, shaking his head slightly and glanced over to the clock again.

It was almost time.

For the twentieth time Robert padded his jacket and the pockets of his pants to make sure he had everything. Then he went through everything he had to do, before he left. Yesterday he had made a list of things he wanted to ask and clarify with the headmaster and when nothing had come to his mind anymore he had started correcting essays.

After dinner he had then packed Eliza's pyjama, her toothbrush and a change of clothes, before she had gone to bed.

In the morning he had brought Eliza over to his mother, who despite her age was still in very good shape and positively adored what she called 'her little rascal'.

"We're going to have loads of fun today, won't we Eliza?" she had said joyfully from under her snowy-white hair, which she usually kept bound in a long braid falling down her back. She had thrown a malicious wink at her granddaughter, who had grinned back wickedly. Robert had raised one of his brows critically at the obvious female conspiracy and had replied, "Just don't show her any of my baby-pictures, mum."

Eliza had then shrieked in mock surprise and his mother had radiantly exclaimed, "What a wonderful idea, dear! I haven't dusted off the old album in years."

'Yeah, right!' Robert thought with a groan, 'She just shows it to every soul that ever puts foot in this apartment.' But only a moment later a smile had graced his stony features and he had bent down to kiss his daughter and his mother on the forehead, before leaving them to their evil scheming.

Robert's gaze wandered to the kitchen window and for a moment he was so taken with the picture of the two women in his life that he overheard the first knock on the front door.

When the second knock brought him back to reality, he hurried to the corridor, but not before giving the kitchen a quick glance to ensure everything was orderly and in its place. When he passed by the mirror in the entrance he stopped for a second to subject his own appearance to the same scrutiny.

He was wearing a white shirt under a summer jacket in light brown colours with trousers in a slightly deeper tone and a dark green necktie. Since he did not know how extensive the school grounds would be he had preventively decided to wear solid walking shoes also in a light brown. Brushing away an imaginary piece of lint from his revert, he finally got to the door and opened it.

The woman in front of him could very well have been one of his Drill-Sergeants during his basic training with the marines: she was a little short, but her stern glare and her serious face simply implied respect. Her dark hair was knotted together at the base of her head in a tight bun. Two sharp, beady eyes looked over a pair of small, square-framed spectacles and her mouth was almost a single, perfectly geometrical line. She wore a dress, which seemed to be much too conservative for the warming summer-day, with its high collar, long sleeves and a skirt that covered everything but the tips of her dark-blue shoes.

When she spoke, her voice had the same sharp and rolling accent that Robert was used from his old friend Fred MacGregor.

"Good morning, Professor Morrigan," she said and extended her fine-fingered hand towards him. "My name is Professor Minerva McGonagall." Robert noticed with some satisfaction, that the woman's grip was firmer than her appearance would have you suspect it and before he could answer to that, she continued, "I am here to escort you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Headmaster Dumbledore is already expecting you."

Minerva McGonagall wasn't often nervous, but she had to admit that this particular business had her wound up tighter than she would have expected it herself.

Obviously that was something she would have never shown to anyone else, generally being a woman who didn't exactly carry her heart around on her sleeve. But this affair had already become more than a matter of gossip among the Hogwarts Staff and she knew exactly that if someone like Snape would have discovered how much this really troubled her, she would never have seen the end of it.

She wasn't even exactly sure, why she was so nervous about this whole business and she irritably stomped her feet a few times on the concrete, while she walked up Turing Street, which would bring her directly to Halley Road, where this ominous Professor Morrigan lived.

"He's just a Muggle, Minerva," she told herself firmly. "So what's the big fuss over him anyway," she continued under her breath, "besides the fact that he's the first non-magical person to ever set foot in Hogwarts since it was founded a millennium ago and that we are actually forced to give in to his conditions, because he seems completely immune to all mind-altering magic and…" Minerva let her thoughts trail off for a few instants, while she observed the monotonous back and forth of her skirt covering her steps on the grey concrete.

She hadn't almost been able to believe it when she had read Felton's report, but there it was. Arthemis hadn't exactly been one of her brightest students ever, but according to Filius he knew his stuff when it came to Memory Charms. He also had never been the type to invent or exaggerate. So maybe she was a little curious about this man… but it didn't explain her nervousness.

He had sounded like a polite and educated man in his correspondence and Albus was right, when he said that Professor Morrigan had quite the impressive resume.

'At least for a Muggle,' she thought with a slight frown. She had to admit that his academic achievements were impressive and although the titles and medals meant nothing to her, his military career sure sounded remarkable too. But it still wasn't enough to unsettle Minerva McGonagall, respected transfiguration teacher since 1956 to the degree she had been.

Then it occurred to her, that it wasn't the man she was afraid of, even though she didn't exactly know what to expect of him. It was the prospect of defending something against him that was not only very dear to her, but almost her entire life: Hogwarts and what it represented.

Dumbledore was surely right, when he said that parents shouldn't have been forced to send their children to them, but still Hogwarts was the headstone of the entire magical community of England. And the simple fact that… that this Muggle dared to question its validity and competence in the education of his daughter, was… was…

"Completely understandable," she sighed, slowing down her pace again, when she turned into Halley Road and began to walk up the small street, which was flanked on both sides by thin, willowy trees. She took a moment to watch their tops, swaying slowly in the barely perceivable breeze and used the soft movement to calm down her racing breath a little.

'Why has Albus decided to send me to this endeavour of all people,' she asked herself for the thousandth time. She wasn't the one to chicken out of anything and when her Headmaster told her to do something, she did her duty without question or hesitation. But this time she had actually found herself questioning Albus' decision to send her to bring this man to Hogwarts. She was sure there were people much better suited for the job, since she had to admit that she wasn't exactly the most diplomatic person at times and, in her opinion, this man would need a lot of convincing to allow his daughter to Hogwarts.

But she had been entrusted with this business and she fully intended to do what was expected of her. So she pulled herself together and raised her chin stubbornly, when she saw on one of the fences the little plate reading: _Morrigan_. She walked through the open fence and up to the door on which she knocked three times, completely ignoring the doorbell.

Nothing happened, and after a while she knocked again, her legendary temper starting to grow short. She heard heavy steps approach inside the house, which stopped shortly before the door was finally swung open.

Minerva drew in a sharp, silent gasp of air and only her years of practice in controlling her facial features prevented her surprise to show openly.

The man standing in front of her was more than a head taller than she was, making him even taller than Albus. He had broad shoulders and an upper body physique like a centaur showing through the casual but nonetheless elegant jacket and shirt he wore. In a match between him and Hagrid she wouldn't have been sure on whom to bet her money – not that she would actually ever have bet on such a barbaric act anyway. He had a square jaw, a straight nose and short, neatly cut, black hair with the slightest hint of grey in them. Two piercing dark eyes were staring at her resolutely and she felt the authority coming from him in slow, steadying waves.

'Pull yourself together, Minerva McGonagall,' she scolded herself sternly and greeted him politely extending her hand towards him, which he engulfed with his own. He had a pleasant handshake, Minerva decided: firm, but deliberately polite and warm, as if he didn't need to prove anything through a strong grip, or anything. But she noticed also something feeling rather jagged and smooth at the same time, and when she glanced down for a second, she saw that the entire back of Morrigans right hand was covered by a scorch-mark, that seemed to go on under his sleeve. It looked like the skin had been melted and had contracted unevenly, when it had cooled down again, leaving a patch of ugly scarred, hairless, leathery hide.

"It's an honour, Headmistress," she heard his deep voice rumble. "Please, come in."

She stepped past him into a neat entrance hall, with a little wardrobe on the right side. He closed the door behind her and waved her along the corridor, which was lined on both sides with shelves full of books. Through a door with a semitransparent window in it they entered the kitchen, which was neat and tidy, without actually being uncomfortable. Simple but elegant wooden chairs surrounded a polished table of dark-red wood – cherry she presumed, just like her wand. Various Muggle devices were standing on the floor, lying orderly on the counter, or hanging from the wall, but she couldn't see any fireplace or chimney where to prepare food on – just a strange glass panel in one corner of the room under what looked like a ventilation cap.

While she was taking it all in, Morrigan walked through the door and over to what seemed to be a cupboard made of spotless white material and putting a hand on the handle he asked, "Can I offer you anything, before we go?"

He sure knew how to be a good host, she thought appreciatively, but shook her head, before she responded, "No, thank you. We will have to leave immediately, I'm afraid."

He raised one eyebrow at that and for a moment he seemed to want to reply something to that, but in the end he just dropped his hand from the handle of the cupboard and straightened his back – making him even taller.

"Right then," he said with a curt nod and extended his arm back towards the door. Minerva shook her head, understanding what he was implying.

"No, Professor Morrigan, we won't need to step outside again. We will travel by the means of this," she said, while pulling a small, flat metal box out of the ruffles of her skirt. Morrigan looked blankly at her. Not one muscle twitched as he shortly glanced at the box in her hand, before his piercing gaze went back up to her critically. Minerva felt like she was being dissected and it needed every bit of the impressive reservoir of self-control she had built up during the years, not to cringe away from this inspection, but she raised her chin and shot him an equally cold glare. Then, as if they had reached some sort of unspoken understanding, they both relaxed and Morrigan came over to where Minerva was standing, coming to a halt in front of her.

"Lead the way, Ma'am," he said calmly, but Minerva could hear the slight hint of anticipation reverberating along with his polite invitation.

"Right, this is a Portkey," she explained adjusting her skirt around her, knowing that Albus preferred to make his Portkeys a little more 'exciting', as he put it. "You just touch it and it will bring us to our destination, Professor," she finished, looking up at him to make sure he had understood.

"Simple enough," he gave back with a curt nod and a slight, but warm smile danced across his lips, when he continued, "But we're not in class, Headmistress. _Mr_ will do."

"As you wish, _Mr_ Morrigan," she responded with a short nod of her own, feeling the corners of her mouth twitch upwards – and wrestling them down quickly. She extended the silver box towards him, opened it to reveal a pocket mirror and said, "We have to touch the inside of the lid at the same time. Are you ready?" He nodded again, his smile fading away to be replaced by a look of focused attention.

"One – Two – Three!" she said and reached for the lid at the same time as he did.

'Oh, I hate Portkey travel," she thought by herself as she seemed to whirl away into the darkness.

_'God!'_ Robert thought while he was whirling away into the darkness. 'This is worse than a HALO jump.'

As soon as Professor McGonagall had finished her countdown and they had touched the lid, he felt a jerk right behind his navel as if a hook had been attached there. He tried to inhale, only to find out that he couldn't, as if all the air around him had suddenly disappeared. He tried to look around, but saw only pitch black darkness. He tried to steady the whirling sensation he had and to orient himself.

He hadn't felt like this since old Perry "Mad Dog" Rilley had ordered their pilot to perform a steep dive just to give them an idea what zero-G felt like and even then he hadn't lost his orientation. But here there wasn't any means of direction, since gravity itself seemed absent and he couldn't pull away from that wretched pocket mirror either. So he forced his eyes to remain open and concentrated on the remaining air in his lungs, remembering his dive training.

After a short eternity, just when he thought that this might go on forever and he began to ask himself how long he could still hold his breath, his feet slammed into the ground… hard… too hard for his linking so his instincts took control, bending him over into a ground-roll. Only a second later he was on his feet again and whipped around to Professor McGonagall, who was smoothing a ruffle in her skirt as if nothing had happened at all.

'You must have a stomach made of reinforced steel, woman,' he thought while he recollected his dignity and dusted off his clothes. Then he began to look around.

Apparently they were in the middle of a square of some sort, the irregular paving stone and the small well just a few feet from him indicating either an old city centre or a village. The rustic-looking houses at the corners of the square indicated the latter and a sign right over a rather old-fashioned and battered street lamp read: _Godfrey Gryffindor Place_.

The scenery was though nothing compared to the people. The few shoppers, who had been waiting or window-browsing in front of the shops, were all now staring at him, some of them even openly pointing fingers at him. That alone was already a quite clear – and rather rude – sign that he was an uncommon sight around here, but the dominant fashion on the square made him and McGonagall stand out like a pair of human-sized fluffy bunnies in a crowd of wall-street brokers.

Felton had told him that the wizarding community had chosen to live in seclusion from the rest of the world centuries ago, but this was ridiculous: most robes and cloaks around him were decades or even centuries out of fashion as if these people hadn't evolved at all since the middle ages. He certainly hadn't expected a technically sophisticated culture, especially considering the astonishment Mr Felton had displayed at the use of a refrigerator. But if he had to judge from the state of the people and the architecture of the surroundings the seclusion went far deeper than he had expected.

He turned his gaze back to McGonagall, who was just resetting the square-framed spectacles on her nose thus completing the inspection of her appearance.

"Where are we, Headmistress?" he asked his voice clam and even as always, which showed him that he had recuperated from that hellish Portkey ride. She answered in a similarly calm tone.

"We are in Hogsmeade. It's a little village at the outskirts of Hogwarts grounds."

"And I suppose my being here is an uncommon occurrence," he ploughed on, fixing his gaze on the beady pupils behind their square glasses. "May I ask why?"

"Certainly, Mr Morrigan," she responded evenly and started to walk towards one of the streets leaving the square. He quickly fell into pace with her, walking past all the people, who were still looking at him, like he was the second coming. His attention whipped back to Professor McGonagall, when she began to explain.

"This village was founded only a few decades after Hogwarts by Godfrey Gryffindor around a millennium ago. Godfrey's father Godric was one of the four founders of Hogwarts and is still considered to be one of the greatest wizards of all times. He and the other four founders of our school created the strongest ward-system around Hogwarts to…" McGonagall paused a second, seemingly looking for the best way to phrase her next thought. But Robert had a clue:

"To protect the children against witch hunts, public burnings and other assorted ways of unpleasant death at the hands of good, devout citizens, I suppose?" He was not able to keep the sarcasm completely out of the last part of his phrase.

"Brutally put, but essentially correct, Mr Morrigan," McGonagall acknowledged with a curt nod.

"So I presume," he continued, "that his son decided to extend this protection to a few adults, creating a refuge for witches and wizards, where they could be safe and free from human oppression. Am I correct?"

"More or less, Mr Morrigan. In a thousand years no Muggle has set foot in Hogsmeade, or has come as near as ten miles to it for that matter."

"Which would explain the astonishment of the people back there," he nodded, while noticing McGonagall's steady steps and regular breathing. So she was used to walk a lot, he concluded and stored that information away for future reference.

"And the fact that I am a Muggle, is so obvious because…?"

She stopped in her tracks abruptly and just looked him up and down with an arched eyebrow.

"I figured as much," he replied to her unspoken answer and after a few seconds of silence they both resumed their way.

"So, do the students come here too during their breaks or free periods?"

"No," she replied in her even cadence, while they reached a fork in the road and started walking down the left way. "The students are only allowed to come to Hogsmeade on special predetermined periods, usually during weekends. A written permission from a parent or guardian is required and only students of third grade or higher are entitled…"

While McGonagall continued explaining things like the houses, the point system and the student's timetables, they walked up the street and past some strange shops. Robert caught a glimpse at things like blood-flavoured lollipops and Cockroach Cluster in a place called _Honeydukes_. As he had already deduced from the letters he had received, the foremost writing utensils used by wizards were feather quills and when he walked past a shop named _Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop_ he saw a lot of them displayed neatly on different shelves and rows. There were feathers of pheasant, raven, hawk and pigeon. But also exotic choices like condor, parrot and peacock. He even thought to notice a sign praising the qualities of hummingbird feathers.

After a while their conversation became more and more relaxed – 'Well, as far as this woman can relax anyway,' Robert found himself thinking with a smirk – with McGonagall explaining this and that about Hogwarts or wizards in general and Robert posing a question here and there. McGonagall was just talking about how students were selected into the houses, a proceeding that took place on the very first day of every school-year and was apparently called 'The Sorting', when they left the premises of Hogsmeade to step on a path that snaked his way up to a gigantic castle.

Robert was dumbstruck for a moment and could do nothing but take in the glorious picture in front of him.

The castle seemed to be a nexus of different styles and ages since Robert recognized the classical gothic style of the middle ages in the central building, but also the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Roman styles were present in various side-arcs and towers. He even thought to recognize some Greek and Persian structures, but wasn't quite sure of that. The lake at the castle's feet was a magnificent, clear and barely rippled mirror, which captured the sky in its entire beauty. To one side of the castle, and crawling up the mountains into which Hogwarts nestled itself, was a forest that went on as far as the eye could see. An old stone bridge crossed over the thinnest part of the lake towards the castle and suddenly Robert believed to see something protruding out of the water; a long flexible thing like a tentacle. But before he could look again to be sure, it was gone.

"That is Hogwarts?" he uttered reverently, before he could stop himself.

"Indeed it is," McGonagall gave back with a subtle smile that faded almost immediately. But instead of returning to her previous demeanour an expression of surprise pictured itself onto her features. It lasted only a second, before she composed her face back to the impassable mask she had worn the whole time and Robert _almost_ missed it. But he _didn't_.

Immediately his brain began working to analyze and file this new information.

Sure the wizards were a very unique brand of people, unlike everything Robert had seen until now. But McGonagall seemed level headed, straight forward and quite aware of customs and mannerisms of normal society; So why this surprise all of a sudden, with no obvious reason?

She had told him that both Hogwarts and Hogsmeade were protected against Muggles, but until now he had seen or heard nothing that would indicate some sort of defence mechanism. Maybe the wards were something more subtle that could not be picked up by normal human senses, but he hadn't felt any noxious effects at all.

But wait! Her reaction reminded him of a similar one, he had just seen a few days ago in another wizard: it was the same surprise Mr Felton had shown at the end of his visit, though McGonagall was much better at concealing it.

So what did these two scenes have in common? Well the answer was simple enough: _Him_.

But he couldn't imagine what it was about him that could astonish wizards, who were – judging by that Portkey ride – used to the magical in their everyday lives.

'That's going to be an excellent question for this Headmaster,' he decided and pushed the matter aside. After all he was here to asses a school for his daughter and not his ability to surprise wizards.

"Shall we?" he asked, inviting McGonagall with his extended arm to take the lead.

"Of course, Mr Morrigan," she said after a second's hesitation and marched on.

Robert let his gaze scan his surroundings again, still not finding anything suspicious, before he finally fell into step behind McGonagall again.

'An Excellent question, indeed.'

Albus was sitting in his study, happily scribbling away to fill out the seemingly infinite flow of forms, which came from the ministry. But today he wasn't going to let the paper avalanche, which was part of Umbridge's petty revenge schemes, spoil his mood.

Today was an extraordinary day and he wasn't going to let something as trivial as this ruin it.

When somebody knocked at his door, he eagerly looked up from his work and to the door, before he called, "Enter."

The petite, but well-built form of Rolanda Hooch came through the door with a big smile plastered on her face. Albus could have sworn to see the static electricity between the spikes of her unruly hair crackle in anticipation. His suspicion was immediately confirmed when his flying instructor stopped in front of his desk and blurted out, "They're here."

"Excellent," exclaimed Albus with a joy that was, as he had to admit to himself, only partly due to the new acquaintance he was going to make in a few minutes. The other part had to do with _not_ filling out any forms… at least for a while.

"Where are they now?"

"Last time I saw them, they were crossing the bridge and apparently this person is able to keep up with Minerva's pace," Rolanda replied.

"Oh," Albus said, standing up from his chair. "This gives us only a few minutes to reach the front porch," he said and began to walk towards the door. Rolanda fell into pace with him, but because of their difference in height and the long strides Albus used when he was in a hurry she had to work hard to keep up.

"Could you see something else, Rolanda?" he asked and she responded without the slightest pant, which was another indication for her fabulous physical form.

"Just that they seemed to get along fine, Albus. In fact they seemed to be chatting happily away, from what I could see."

Albus felt the corners of his mouth stretch into a grin.

"Told you so," he said to the little woman hurrying alongside him.

"Yes, yes. I'll give you the two Sickles later. But how did you know? Have you met him before?" she asked with a furrow between her sharp eyebrows that warned Albus about alternative uses of brooms, besides flying. So he just smiled his most charming smile at her and said nothing, extending his strides a little more, so that Rolanda had to fall into a fully fledged trot to keep up. They stepped down the last flight of stairs and out the main gates just in time, when Minerva and their guest took the last turn of the path.

Albus had about a minute to appraise the man, who walked beside Minerva and even considering his little bit of research about what the Royal Marines were exactly and how they trained, he had to say that he was impressed: the sheer size of the man was already intimidating, even if Albus had learned a long time ago, that size was a very poor measure to appraise people. The way he moved though, steady and fluently, almost reminded him of a predator, which was well aware of his surroundings and his own strength.

He wore a very simple and practical, but nonetheless elegant Muggle-ensemble of jacket and trousers, that seemed to be so incredibly out of place here at Hogwarts, where the standard had been robes for a thousand years.

When the strange pair finally approached, Dumbledore finished his inspection of the cleanly shaven face, with its hard, square jaw and short hair. The slight streak of grey in it was the only hint at the man's actual age.

But the most disturbing attribute of his appearance were his eyes: deep, dark pits, which betrayed the indescribable beauties and unspeakable horrors they had seen. Albus didn't require Legilimens to realize that the calm shell this man displayed was a mask, probably born out of necessity and self-preservation, which had at a certain point become a habit. Watching this man was like watching a wild animal contained in the shell of a gentleman, clawing the inner side of his skull to get out.

Albus had talked to Felton yesterday, to get a first impression of what he had to expect from this unusual visitor and now he knew exactly what the elderly Ministry official had meant:

This man was dangerous!

But there was also something else… just barely visible under the surface of his dark irises. Albus couldn't exactly define what it was or even how he could have missed it in the first place, but it made him nonetheless feel safe and at ease.

"Welcome, Professor Morrigan. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and very pleased to meet you," he introduced himself, extending his hand.

"Thank you very much, Headmaster. I am very glad that this visit was finally made possible," Morrigan gave back in a deep, steady voice grasping his hand with a firm grip.

"I understand," he interrupted himself to throw a short glance over to Minerva, who just nodded almost imperceptibly, "that the authorization was given mostly thanks to your authority. So I wanted to express my gratitude to you for this opportunity to visit your school."

"No need to thank me," Albus waved the thanks aside. "It is both an obligation and a pleasure to show you our school. After all you made a fair point in your letter, when you said that a parent should be allowed to visit for the good of his child."

"I am glad we agree on that, Headmaster," Morrigan replied with a curt nod.

"Indeed we do. But where are my manners? This is Madam Hooch, our flight instructor," he said with an inviting wave over to the woman at his side. Again Morrigan extended his hand, but this time he accompanied it with a short bow. If it was because Rolanda was so much shorter than he was, or out of an old-fashioned sense of etiquette Albus couldn't say, but it was nonetheless a nice gesture. Rolanda herself seemed to be somewhat lost for words for a few seconds before she managed a, "Welcome at Hogwarts."

"It's a pleasure, Madam Hooch. But if you don't mind me asking, what do you teach exactly?" Rolanda goggled at Morrigan for an instant, but Albus came to her aid immediately.

"Oh, I'm sorry. My Mistake," he said with a chuckle. "It must seem quite extraordinary to you to have a flight instructor at a school."

"You might say so, Headmaster," Morrigan gave back with a raised eyebrow. "We normals – I mean, we Muggles – we usually are not able to learn to fly until we are of age. And even then a license requires dozens or even hundreds of hours of practice depending on the machine you intend to fly. What do the students learn to fly here?"

"Brooms."

Morrigans other eyebrow went up.

"Brooms?" he repeated with evident incredulity all over his face.

"Yes, indeed, Mr Morrigan. If you like we can give you a short demonstration, but there is much more to see at Hogwarts, than just the Quidditch pitch," Albus returned happily, inviting Morrigan with a fluent gesture to follow him.

Morrigan nodded shortly. "I haven't any other engagements today. But if I might be so bold, Headmaster: what is Quidditch?"

Albus chuckled.

It was turning out to be a very interesting day, Albus decided while he walked at the side of Mr Morrigan – _Mr_ and not _Professor_ as his guest preferred to be addressed – down the Second floor corridor towards the stairs to the dungeons.

Before their tour Albus had lead his guest into the Great Hall, where the house-elves had prepared a little welcoming buffet, which Morrigan had thankfully refused, stating that he had already eaten and was eager to see the castle instead. Dumbledore understood this very much, but he on the other hand hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. So he had convinced Morrigan to enjoy the short stop with him.

They had sat together comfortably for half an hour chit-chatting about a wide range of arguments. During this time Albus had seen his first impression of the man verified as Morrigan was an equally refined and respectful man, who posed many questions and was also actually interested in hearing the answers.

After this little intermezzo, they had begun their tour of the castle starting with the Transfiguration department. Since Morrigan and McGonagall had already had time to talk – and seemed to have grown quite accustomed to each other, Albus noted with slight amusement – this part of the visit was quite short. McGonagall had simply shown him around her classroom and the laboratory for the N.E.W.T students and explained the basic theoretical principles of Transfiguration to a very interested-looking Morrigan.

Their next stop had been Firenze's Room and when they entered it, Morrigan had given a low whistle. Albus had to give Morrigan credit for his calm composure, when the room's inhabitant had stepped out behind an oak. But the old wizard had seen the look of awe just beneath the surface of Morrigan's mask of polite indifference, when Firenze came over and offered his hand.

"I have foreseen your arrival," Firenze had said while reclaiming his hand from Morrigan – without the need to straighten up again, as Albus noticed. Morrigan was so tall that he and Firenze could see eye to eye.

"Well," Morrigan had replied with a short glance over to Albus, "I have sent word of my arrival beforehand." Firenze had just looked mildly interested, as if the last phrase had made exactly his point. At that Albus had decided to intervene, saying,

"Firenze is our Divination teacher, Mr Morrigan."

And then it had been Albus' turn to be surprised, when a shout of, "Not the only Divination teacher," had come from behind the very oak Firenze had stepped out from. Only a moment later an ethereally fuming Sibyll Trelawney had hovered out from behind the tree and come to a halt beside Firenze, who had looked at her with the same polite interest he had shown towards Morrigan.

"Aha!" Albus had exclaimed, recuperating quickly from the shock of finding Sibyll Trelawney outside of her smoky and dusty tower and thanking fate that now he would not have to climb all the way up to her study. "Indeed not the only one. Mr Morrigan, may I present our _senior_ Divination teacher to you: Professor Trelawney." The 'senior' had seemed to placate Sibyll a little and she too had offered her hand to their visitor.

Again Morrigan had given a curt bow, when he grasped Sibyll's fingers and for a moment she had lost her usual airy attitude, her already magnified eyes growing even wider. But after a short glance to Firenze, who had shaken his head imperceptibly, for the first time Albus could remember, she seemed to decide that her knowledge was best kept behind her teeth.

"So… Divination," Morrigan had said after dropping Sibyll's hand again and looking from her to the centaur and back again. "Seems like a… loose subject," he had said with the distinct expression that he didn't know what to think of it.

"Oh, not at all," Sibyll had replied at once. "Divination is an art that requires strict discipline and constant practice." Albus had barely managed not to snort, but Firenze had nodded gravely and said:

"Indeed it is. It requires years of practice and experience to read the waves of fate and even then a true seer has always to question his predictions, since fate is a fickle companion."

To Dumbledore's renewed surprise, Morrigan had seemed satisfied by this answer as he nodded slightly and smiled at the strange couple before him.

"Well, Madame and… Sir…?" Firenze had nodded. "It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance." They had shaken hands again and Albus and Morrigan had left the room shortly after.

After a minute of silence during which they had reached the central stair-case, in which Morrigan had muttered something like, "M.C. Asher indeed," Albus couldn't contain himself anymore.

"Pardon me if I ask you something, Mr Morrigan, but do you believe in Divination?" he had asked, his curiosity well masked, but present nonetheless.

"Not at all, Headmaster," Morrigan had responded with a short, sheepish smile. "Everything I learned during my studies points to the direction that the whole universe in an inherently unpredictable system. But Mr Firenze's attitude to question everything and most of all what he deems to know to be true is much too wise a perception not to like. Even Socrates said, 'The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing'."

"Indeed," Albus had said appreciatively. This man earned the old wizard's respect more and more with each instant.

"And after all," Morrigan had continued with a sly grin, "all my studies hadn't deemed the existence of a centaur possible. So…"

Albus had only chuckled.

Following this very promising start, they had visited the Astronomy Tower, the greenhouses and the Quidditch pitch, where Rolanda had given Morrigan a demonstration of broom-flight. After that they had visited Hagrid, who had just been feeding Buckbeak – or Witherwings, Albus remembered.

After they had left Hagrid a slightly concerned-looking Morrigan had asked him to show him the infirmary and Albus, looking back to the little hut at the edge of the forest, thought to know, where the man's worries where coming from. But as soon as they had left Poppy, after the matron had lengthily explained how she was prepared for almost anything, Morrigan's expression had lightened considerably again.

Now they were descending the mouldy staircases to the dungeons and Albus hoped against all odds that Severus wouldn't ruin everything with his usual harshness. The Potion's Master was a difficult character during his best times, but during the past month he had been positively unpleasant. After last year's disastrous attack though, Horace Slughorn couldn't be persuaded to stay any longer and so Albus had been forced to reassign the position of Potions Master to its former holder.

When they entered the damp room, Severus was working over a complicated construction of cauldrons, glass tubes and hoses, which emitted a generous amount of putrid-smelling purple smoke.

"Severus?"

"What," the Potions Master responded short-tempered, while he turned around to face them ill-willed. When he saw Morrigan his brows furrowed and his nose wrinkled in disdain.

"Ah, yes," he said, contempt oozing out of every syllable, "the Muggle."

'Good God, Severus,' Albus thought despairingly and shaking his head slightly, before he fixed the Potions Master with a warning glare. But Severus seemed to be positively determined to be uncooperative today.

"I'm sorry, Headmaster, but at the moment I have something of _actual importance_ to attend to," he continued completely ignoring Morrigan's presence.

"If we are interrupting something, we could…" Morrigan began in a pacifying manner, but was almost immediately interrupted by Snape, who now addressed him directly for the first time.

"How incredibly perceptive of you," he almost snarled.

Albus looked apologetically back to Morrigan, whose features had hardened into a mask of absolute neutrality. His eyes though were as piercing and penetrating as a killing curse and Albus could see the beast clawing at the surface again.

"I think, I have seen all I need here, Headmaster," he finally said turning on the spot and beginning to walk towards the door. When Albus saw Severus preparing for a retort, he was just able to think, 'Don't push it, Severus.'

But every hope was vain as the Potions Master turned around to his work and said, "Finally free of the amateurs again."

Morrigan snapped around, looking daggers at Severus and Albus thought he felt the temperature drop of a few degrees.

"Amateur?" he asked with a voice that seemed to chip ice as he spoke. "I am not the one working in a sorry excuse of a laboratory that has the security precautions of a medieval torture chamber," he said, while slowly walking back to the now slightly insecure Potions Master.

"I am not the one concocting an obviously volatile compound without the insurance of a simple ventilation system," he continued still advancing. "I am not the one working near open flames with a long-sleeved robe, which could catch on fire at any moment." He came to a stop just a foot away from Severus.

"And for the distillation of an organic liquid," he finally said, pointing a finger at the construction by Severus' side, "that siphon there needs to be inserted the other way around."

While Albus had to fight down the urge to laugh out loud, Severus snapped around to his construction to find out that he had indeed inserted the conjunction-siphon between the Mandrake-extract and the Bowtruckle-hide the wrong way. He immediately spun to face Morrigan again, but before he could say another word the other man bowed down to him a little and said, "Good day, _Professor_," and walked out the room with three quick strides.

"Headmaster…!" Severus rounded on him, but Albus just looked quizzically at him and said:

"Hmm? I'm sorry, Severus. Did something just happen? I must have missed it, but you'll undoubtedly be able to tell me about it at dinner." And before the Potions Master could retort to that, Albus left the mouldy dungeon as well.

When he caught up with Morrigan again, who was waiting just outside the dungeon door, he said, "I have to apologize for Professor Snape, Mr Morrigan. I don't know what…" But Morrigan raised a placating hand.

"No need to apologize, Headmaster," he said shaking his head slightly. "Characters are different and sometimes they just don't cope with each other. But I have to tell you that I am seriously thankful for you nurse's obvious ability, because otherwise I would seriously doubt that any of your students would reach a mature age."

"Oh, Professor Snape would never…" Albus began reassuringly, but again Morrigan stopped him with a raised hand.

"I don't doubt it, Headmaster. But a temper like his paired with a laboratory as outdated and insecure as that is indeed a reason for concern," he finished with furrowed brows.

"I guess I can't make any promises about the temper, Mr Morrigan. But every suggestion about laboratory-security is greatly appreciated. Although I assure you that no grave accident has ever happened during any Potions Lesson since I have become Headmaster, because even if it doesn't look it, Professor Snape is one of the most accomplished Potion Makers in the country."

"That is reassuring," Morrigan replied conversationally and began to retrace his steps out of the dungeons. "But I hope that you haven't already run out of charming staff members."

Albus smiled and followed the younger man along the dark corridor.

"No," he said, "In fact the next person we're going to see is not only one of the finest Professors at this institute, but also a long-time friend that I am positive will make a great impression on you, despite his size."

Morrigan lifted an eyebrow, but suggested a bow and said, "After you then, Headmaster."

Filius Flitwick had always been fascinated with mysteries and riddles and any closed box was an almost irresistible siren call for him. It was a curiosity that permeated his whole mind and drove him always to find out more about what was hidden.

Luckily for Filius this vice – which he admitted his little obsession to be – was accompanied by the even greater virtue of reason. This combination, over the years, had made Filius into one of the most coveted and renowned expert charm- and curse-breakers in Europe.

During the war almost twenty years ago Dumbledore and the Order had relied heavily on Filius for any task concerning the opening of dark artefacts, Death Eater hideouts and the decryption of secret messages.

The department of Mysteries itself had offered him a high-ranking position almost as soon as he had gotten out of school. He had however refused, preferring to travel the world for a few years instead and discover old secrets long forgotten and new secrets never told.

But since these days long ago, his method had not changed at all: consider the problem, find a solution, then invert the problem and see if the solution still fits. If not, start again!

This approach allowed him to see different angles of the same subject and consider all the possible options, before even starting to consider any viable solutions. Of course, as Alastor Moody had stated more than once, this was not a viable way of thinking for the battlefield, but nonetheless Filius had done his share and to this day very few riddles had escaped his brain unsolved.

'Except that weird cube-thingy I bought a few years ago. Damn you Mr Rubick!' he thought frustrated, as he looked over to his present task, which sat innocently on the middle of his carpet and seemed to mock him with it's sheer presence.

It was a trunk that had been confiscated during a raid by the successor of Madame Bones at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Luckily this successor – whose name Filius kept forgetting – had had enough good sense not to open or even touch it, but she was pretty sure it contained something of value to the Dark Lord. So she had asked Dumbledore for help and Albus finally had given it to Filius, who had gladly accepted the new challenge.

'Gladly… Hmpf!' he thought. Well, that had been before he had spent three weeks trying to safely find out what it was, without much result.

Filius sighed and turned on his stool. He took his glasses off and massaged the bridge of his nose for a moment trying to think clearly. He knew that the trunk had powerful runes and spells protecting the lock. He was pretty sure that the runes themselves represented some kind of code or combination. But he hadn't been able to find any of these runes anywhere in his books, so he supposed that the runes themselves had been encrypted.

Every decryption method he knew though had been unsuccessful and the Ministry was now sending almost daily owls, to inquire on his progress.

Filius sat down in front of the trunk and rested his chin on his intertwined fingers. He stared at the box with its elegant, light build, the finely crafted metal strips fixed together with golden bolts. The deceptively light wood within the metal frame was smoothly polished and of a sandy colour that…

If Filius hadn't been sitting right now, he would have probably fallen over.

"Sandy!" he exclaimed triumphantly rushing to his desk. He climbed on his stool and began to search his notes frantically.

"It's no new form of rune-language," he explained to his office at large, while entire stacks of documents toppled over and glided to the floor. "It's a very old form of rune-language. Or to be more precise," he finally explained with a little squeak of joy as he pulled a sheet of battered parchment from the rest and jumped from his stool, to compare it to the trunk, "It's the oldest form of runes there is."

He ran to his bookshelf and browsed the books neatly ordered in it until he found a rather thin and old volume entitled _Phoenician Cuneiforms_.

"It's like that," he continued his lecture to the empty room, "Runes are not an invention of the German tribes, but were imported from the south. Greek and Latin alphabets evolved from older sign-alphabets like the Babylonian or Phoenician Cuneiforms, but the signs themselves became more sophisticated, because these civilizations used other materials than wood to write. The Germans though inherited the raw form and adapted it to their needs, which resulted in what we know as runes." He finally finished to skim through the book and fixed the trunk with a slight smirk on his face.

He began to translate what was written on it holding the book in his left hand and muttering something like, "Hmm…", "And if we try to…" and "That can't be right!"

After half an hour he finally thought to have it all together and the book snapped shut in his hand. He glared at the chest in victorious satisfaction as he approached it. He carefully placed his fingers on the right runes and after checking everything for one more time he said an old and almost forgotten word of power.

He immediately heard a sharp clicking noise as if a bolt was sliding out of its lock and the slight tremor went through his exuberant body like a stunning charm. He felt the lid of the trunk open slightly under his fingers and he began to lift it.

Then, suddenly, he realized that he couldn't pull his fingers away from the lid anymore and that his body was being drawn forward… towards… no… _through the lid, into the trunk!_

'A trap!' he though, while he felt the panic rise inside of him.

He looked around to find something to hold on to, but there was nothing. He held his breath, like someone, who's about to jump into deep water and his ears buzzed with adrenaline.

Just when the darkness was about to swallow him whole, he heard the door open and Albus' voice ring through the room.

"Filius? I wanted to introduce you to Mr Morrigan who's come to visit… Filius? _Filius!_"

Then, before Filius could say or do anything else, the sharp snap of the trunk separated him from the rest of the world and the analytical part of his mind murmured into the darkness,

'The rune for "lock" can also mean "prison" in the Phoenician translation.'

"It's no use, Albus," Minerva said exasperated, turning away from the stubbornly locked trunk. "It's as if it was specifically designed to repel magic as soon as activated. I don't know who could manufacture such a thing, but I am sure it was created with the purpose to trap and ultimately kill somebody."

She almost kicked the damn thing, but restrained herself just in time. It was so frustrating to be right near Filius and not being able to do anything to help him.

"I concur, Headmaster," Severus intervened, his face slightly flushed under his pale skin. He had run all the way from the dungeons. "I even tried a few potions, but they all seem to lose their magical power as soon as they touch the trunk." He looked sourly over to the object of his disappointment, but she couldn't help but notice the piercing stare and blown nostrils: a clear sign of Severus' rising temper.

"We could call a curse-breaker," suggested Pomona with a hopeful look, but Albus simply shook his head gravely.

"If I see this correctly, Filius has less than half an hour, before he runs out of air and…"

"We have five minutes."

This statement cut through the varied conversations like an executioner's axe. Everyone turned to Morrigan, who was kneeling behind the trunk, seemingly inspecting its hinges.

"Don't touch that," snapped Severus and turned around, his robes billowing angrily behind him. But Morrigan finished his inspection as if the Potions Master hadn't even spoken, then he rose and addressed Albus.

"Can magically enhanced metal withstand high temperatures?" he asked directly, completely ignoring the now fuming Severus.

"To a certain degree," Albus answered immediately, his brows furrowed in question. "How high a temperature do you mean?"

"About 2000 °C," Morrigan responded flatly without even a twitch in his stony features.

Albus stared at him for a moment incredulously. Then his furrow became deeper as he asked, "What do you have in Mind, Mr Morrigan?"

"To weld him out," he responded again giving Albus a decisive nod.

"This is ridiculous," Severus finally erupted. His cheeks were now almost pink and his eyes threw lightning bolts at Morrigan. Every other man would have at least considered his next action, but Morrigan wasn't every other man, Minerva concluded.

"What could you possibly do in five minutes to…"

"Four now, Professor." Morrigan shot back, meeting Severus' glare with icy determination. "Seven, if we count the three minutes' frame, before the brain starts taking serious damage."

Minerva was shocked. How could he say that with such a calm and plain voice, as if an insect were trapped in the trunk and not a fellow human being? But he didn't leave her enough time to ponder on it, or even formulate another thought.

"I need iron oxide and aluminium in powdered form and a magnesium strip. And I need it yesterday. Headmaster, tell the nurse to be ready to reanimate immediately and we need someone to talk to him, to keep him calm as to prolong his oxygen reserve. And I need a hammer or something similar."

"A hammer?" Severus' voice was almost shrill now, but Morrigan returned to the inspection of the trunk without giving him another glance.

When nobody moved for a second, just staring at the kneeling Muggle in front of them, Morrigan looked up and Minerva felt a cold shiver run down her spine at the sight of these eyes. She realized that these eyes had seen far more than she wanted to give them credit for, and that this man had faced situations a lot worse than this one. It was as if he was used to death and despair, but in the meantime refused to accept them.

"Now, people!" The short order – and there was no mistake about that: it was an order – immediately brought Minerva back to reality and she began to move at once, as everybody else did. Only Severus remained where he was, glaring at Morrigan, before he said, "Truly Headmaster. This is ridiculous. He's only a…"

But Albus stopped him with a raised hand, his face now set and his eyes gently piercing.

"Please, Severus."

Severus seemed on the verge of saying something for a moment, but after a look into his employer's eyes just nodded curtly and said, "Of course, Headmaster." And with that he disappeared through the door and Minerva didn't lose any time in following him.

When she came back with Madame Pomfrey, she found Morrigan already bent over the trunk, a folded piece of parchment in his hands, apparently trickling down some kind of powder on the hinges. Albus was following his every motion with a mixture of interest and anxiety, while Severus was standing over by the table, throwing a furtive glance now and then, when he felt unobserved.

When Morrigan finished, he walked over to the table and collected two thin strips of metal and stuck each to one of the hinges. Then he grabbed inside his pocket and produced a box of matches, while he threw a glance at his wristwatch.

"We're cutting it close," he said, opening the box and lighting a match. "He should be out of oxygen by now," he said and kneeled down to the trunk. Minerva noticed a small but sturdy hammer right beside his knee, but her glance immediately went back to the lit match in Morrigans hand.

He held it to the first metal strip and squeezed his eyes shut. The metal almost immediately lit up with a blindingly bright flame, but Minerva couldn't do anything else than stare as Morrigan lit up the second strip as well and blew out the match. For a few seconds the white flames wandered along the strips as they consumed them and then went out.

Minerva waited anxiously with her breath held for a few moments, expecting the lid of the trunk to blow off at any second.

But nothing happened.

After a few more instants of absolute silence Severus' voice boomed through the room.

"See?" he screamed. "I told you it wouldn't work. I told you this Muggle had no idea what he was talking about. Filius' blood is on his hands now, on his…"

Suddenly, right in the middle of Severus' steady stream of insults, a stinging smell punctured Minerva's nose. It was as if something was burning, but more intense though. When she looked back at Morrigan, he wasn't getting up in defeat, but rather staring in concentration at the back of the trunk.

When Minerva dropped her gaze to the hinges too, she stared at them in disbelief for several seconds, before she remembered to breathe again: the hinges and all the metal around them was now read hot and melting, while a thin wisp of smoke rose from them.

Morrigan waited a few more seconds, until the frame was starting to melt away and then wound up and struck the point were the hinge had been only a moment ago with the hammer. He repeated this with the other hinge, dropped the hammer on the floor and gave the trunk a solid kick with his boot. The lid flew right off it to land near the door with a loud clatter, Pomona and Euclidia jumping out of the way.

He then immediately grabbed Filius and lifted him up like a doll, before he asked a completely befuddled Madame Pomfrey, "Where do you need him?"

A few minutes later Filius was awake again and on his way to the hospital wing. Poppy had almost forcibly strapped him to the levitating gurney she had conjured and was making her usual fuss over him. Everyone else in the room was catching their breath after the excitement.

Everyone, but Morrigan.

He was simply staring at the trunk with a pensive expression, completely unaware that the rest of the room was staring at _him_.

Finally Albus broke the silence.

"Well done everyone," he beamed at the room at large, clapping his hands. "Well done indeed. And a special compliment to you, Mr Morrigan. I would have never expected such a thing. I must really admit that I'm impressed and…"

"You haven't told me everything. Have you, Headmaster?" again Albus wondered at Morrigan's ability to drop a room's temperature almost instantly with a single comment, although many people had said the same about him too.

"I am by no means an expert on hieroglyphs and the exact workings of this chest are a complete mystery to me, but I recognize a trap when I see one. And since the wood of this chest still smells of carpenter's shop and the scratches on the screws are still fresh, this device has been manufactured recently. Furthermore what you told me about Professor Flitwick and what I have read on the papers on his desk seems to make him the only qualified person to open this box. This and the fact that this chest is too small to accommodate any normal-sized human, but seems to be tailored perfectly for Professor Flitwick's size leaves only one viable conclusion: This trap wasn't only manufactured recently, but with the sole purpose of killing one of your Professors. Am I wrong, Headmaster?"

"Well, I guess there are a few facts about our world I might have missed…"

"You owe me an explanation, Headmaster," Morrigan cut him off, "and if I don't get it within the next minute, I will walk out of here and my daughter will never set foot in this school."

For a moment there, Albus thought that Pomona's eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. It wasn't like Morrigan was being disrespectful. Albus had had that before and knew perfectly well how to turn the tables and take control over a conversation with someone, who was being rude. But Morrigan was stating facts. Pure and simple facts; he knew Albus owed him an explanation and knew also to be in the position to demand and insist on it, although Albus doubted Morrigan ever had to insist on anything.

He exchanged a look with Minerva and after a short glance over to the waiting father she nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Very well, Mr Morrigan," Albus sighed. "I knew this was going to be unavoidable sooner or later. But would you please answer a question, before I explain everything to you?"

Morrigan fixed him with a stare that could have melted steel at least as well as his powder had only a few minutes ago. But Albus stayed calm and their little staring duel ended with no one as a winner and both with a whole lot more respect for the other one.

"One, Headmaster," Morrigan said calmly. "Make sure it's the right one."

The deafening silence that followed and the incredulous, yet interested stare he was now receiving from Morrigan both told him that his question hadn't only been the right one, but that it had struck gold.

Albus smiled.

_**A/N:** What has Albus asked Morrigan and what happened to Harry in the meantime?   
See you in the next chapter.   
**Quiz Resolution:**   
**Krishna** (Sanskrit for 'black' or 'dark blue'), is according to common Hindu tradition the eighth avatar of Vishnu and one of the most popular Hindu deities. Since I cannot post any links here, I strongly recommend a trip over to wikipedia to read the whole article.   
And as always, here's the next little riddle:   
**What has Morrigan used to melt the hinges?**   
I know this is a tough one, but who doesn't try, doesn't win. Right? A tip: ask your chemistry teacher._


End file.
